Argos is on a diet this week due to his recent excesses at the dog spa. So I suppose it was hunger that drove him to steal an entire batch of chocolate chip banana muffins. I walked in as he was eating the last three (of 36). Because chocolate is poisonous to dogs, we had to induce vomiting immediately. Also, because Argos weighs 110 pounds, we had to quickly get him to drink 2 cups of 50% hydrogen peroxide solution. Turkey baster to the rescue! Shortly after pinning down Argos and siphoning the H202 into him, it looked like a flotilla of jellyfish had washed up on our kitchen floor. Argos seems to be fine.
As an aside, I have met dozens of people who say that their dogs have eaten chocolate without any adverse effects (some in excess of the lethal dose of the most toxic types of chocolate, too). I have never met anyone, or even a friend of a friend who had a dog that died from eating chocolate. I know that chocolate is supposed to be poisonous to dogs (hence the induced vomiting), but if chocolate is so toxic, why are there so many dogs that have eaten it and been fine? I asked the vet this question, and he told me that the effects of chocolate were cumulative, and that one day, these chocolate eaters would just keel over and die. I tend to think that maybe the vet was bullshitting me because he didn't know the answer to my question. Perhaps the answer is not known. I suppose that doing animal research that involves poisoning dogs for the purpose of improving knowledge of dog health would be morally problematic.
3 comments:
So for a minute there I actually thought that you posted a picture of the muffin up chuck! I have heard that the dog has to eat 25% of their body weight in chocolate for it to be leathal. But I think water is leathal in that quantity too.
My dad's dog, little Fernando, ate a whole tray of chocolates once and had his stomache pumped. The vet told my dad he would have died if he had went without medical treatment, so who knows.
In other dog medical news, I recently saw a news piece about using dog's own stem cells to treat hip problems and other effects of aging. Vets are able to use procedures that are not yet approved for humans in dogs, because, well, they're dogs. I am convinced that as long as we keep Scarlett away from Chocolate and traffic that she'll live to be 35. It could happen.
In an effort to determine if treatments for dogs apply to humans and vice versa, I am trying to eat 25% of my weight in chocolate. So far, I feel fabulous.
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