by Carolee Smith
In the past four to five years there have been reports of how very poisonous chocolate is to dogs. I have always poo-pooed this information on the basis that I'd never heard any stories from my father (a vet) about this. And besides, we've let our dogs lick the chocolate ice cream from the bottom of our bowls for years with no ill effects (other than enhanced pudginess and sticky ears). On Christmas Day 1998 our two pugs, Sally and Harry, disproved everything I believed.
We left the two dogs alone at our ranch house, miles from anywhere, on Christmas Day for about an hour and made available to them (by leaving it on a coffee table) about a pound of homemade fudge. Needless to say when we came home the baggie the fudge had been in was empty. Pug's being compulsively neat, not a crumb remained. The only evidence was a shredded plastic bag and a very sick looking Sally. Sally is a stocky, 19-pound female. Harry, is considerably larger, taller, and weighs about 24 pounds. It was obvious immediately this made a difference as Sally was in significantly worse shape than Harry. The first thing I noticed Sally doing was nearly emptying her water bowl. I thought to myself I should stop her from drinking so much water, but then thought maybe she needed it. She didn't. It only made the situation worse. She swelled up, her little round body becoming as hard and taut as a watermelon. Her head was sort hanging and bobbing and her heart was racing. I was terrified. I knew we had a serious problem. Since it was Christmas Day I was certain we needed to race the two-hour drive to the nearest emergency clinic (Austin). My husband had a better idea. We ended up calling a close friend in Austin who is a veterinarian. If you're in the Austin area he is Dr. Greg Biehle and his clinic, the Brykerwood Veterinary Clinic, is on West 35th Street. He walked and talked us through the following procedure.
First Greg explained that we did indeed have a serious problem, but that it was one we could probably manage on our own. The symptoms Sally was exhibiting were dangerous and typical and we needed to get the dogs to throw up the consumed candy. He explained that it wasn't the chocolate, per se, that was the toxin, but a chemical in chocolate called theobromine (also called theobromide). He told us that what was of most concern was the large amount consumed by fairly small dogs. That is why Sally was sicker than Harry and why the small amount of chocolate ice cream in the bottom of the bowl had never given us a problem.
He asked if we had hydrogen peroxide, and we did. He told us to give each dog 3 to 4 tablespoons of the hydrogen peroxide, wait for them to vomit, and call him back. Getting a pug to eat fudge is one thing, getting them to swallow hydrogen peroxide quite another. I measured the approximate amount of the liquid (a little extra, actually since I knew I wouldn't get it all down the dogs) into a bowl and then sucked it up with a turkey baster. The tricky part is getting the dog to swallow the fluid. With a brachycephalic breed like the pug, the smushed in face creates an extra hazard. It is important to get the liquid down the throat and not in the nasal passages or lungs. This is best accomplished by tipping the head back, lifting the cheek of the dog, inserting the tip end of the baster into the cheek pouch and slowly letting the fluid run down the throat. Apparently we were able to get enough of the hydrogen peroxide into the dogs because it wasn't very long before Sally vomited the candy. After three phone calls to the vet and three doses of the hydrogen peroxide, Greg was satisfied they had thrown up enough of the fudge to be out of danger.
While we were lucky enough to have a veterinarian walk us through this procedure, it is a fairly simple way of inducing vomiting. Granted it was unpleasant particularly for the dogs but within two hours they were completely back to normal and quite put out that they were not allowed to have dinner that night.
Did they learn a lesson? Of course not. If we had put a plate of fudge down that same night they'd have done it all over again. Did we learn a lesson? Well, actually our pugs have proven time and again that they will eat anything (except for vegetables). One would think we'd have learned on the package of dried lentil soup mix that they tried to make, but gave up when they couldn't figure out how to boil water. With Valentine's Day and Easter and all that chocolate candy just around the corner, the moral of the story is, keep it out of their reach. If it's there, they'll eat it!