I had a spinal injury a few years ago and the surgeon warned me of permanent nerve damage causing incontinence being a potential consequence if it got worse. It's called "cauda equina syndrome", I did a quick search and it looks like it occurs in dogs too. Essentially you lose all nerve feeling on your bowel, hence not knowing when you need to go. I'm not sure what the solution is (if any) but it could be a clue.
Chocolate!
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My B just got into a treat bag my daughter brought home from school today. I'm not sure where she left it, but by the time I figured out why he was being so quiet and messing with something on the couch other than his chew bone, he had eaten 2 hershey kisses - I think. I'm going by the number of foil wrappers I found. I know choc is bad for them. Is there anything I should do? Or is that an acceptible amount? Please help
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Two hershey's kisses should be fine. Milk chocolate is the least toxic. You could give the dog some peroxide to vomit it up if it would make you feel better..but I don't know how much. My dogs got into some cookies I made with bakers chocolate one year and all the vet did was give them charcoal to vomit it up….I don't bake chocolate cookies anymore
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Usually 2 tablespoons, is enough to make them "barf"… but it needs to be within at least an hour of when they have eaten.... for it to be really effective
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I would watch them and if they act "off" get them to the vet.
but, imo, they should be fine.
Just keep the chocolate out of their reach and the proxide on hand just in case. -
Thanks for the advise. He seems fine now. Although, he had quite a sugar/caffeine rush going on there for a while. He was doing the triple B500 for a while there and he's usually quite a calm dog. But, after the rush, he went and had a nap. I just let him out for last call for the night and he seems ok.
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I found an interactive chart on the National Geographic website that allows you to pick the dog's weight to get an idea of the effects of certain types of chocolate on your size dog. Of course, it doesn't take into mind the variation that it might have on specific breeds of dogs. But it is still interesting:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/pets/chocolate-chart-interactive
We had a basset hound that managed to find and eat a very large baker's sized bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. It was a Saturday night and we had a house full of guests and I made the discovery about 5 minutes before she started vomiting up the chocolate. I don't know why it didn't kill her…probably her iron constitution and the fact that she weighed almost 70 lbs. Her heart rate was extremely elevated and I was really afraid we'd lose her. Actually, truth be known, as I repeatedly cleaned up vomited chocolate over the course of what seemed like hours ..while still trying to entertain houseguests, I was torn between being afraid she'd die and wanting to kill her myself!! We usually didn't let her sleep in our bedroom because she snored so loudly but that night I made a bed for her on the floor next to our bed so I could monitor her. (She had stopped vomiting by then.)
Pat
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BasenjiDiva,
That interactive chart is really cool. Thanks for sharing. I had heard the rule of thumb for milk chocolate, 1 oz per lb of dog was potentially fatal. This chart is more conservative than that.
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Very cool chart. I didn't realize how much a difference there was between milk/dark chocolate and white chocolate. Seems that cocoa is the toxic component.
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Yes. The cocoa has the theobromine in it which is the culprit. The more cocoa the more toxic. The combination with caffeine also makes it worse.
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Interesting….I just administered hydrogen peroxide to Mick today as he drank a plastic cup full of chocolate milk. He threw it all up and slept the rest of the day.
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Great chart! Thanks for posting. Benji's been fine today. He wasn't acting like he felt bad or anything. Whew!!! I reminded my 6 yo today that she HAS to make sure to not leave any candy out where he can get to it. Also told her that this could have been very bad if he had eaten more. She said she understood and promised to not leave candy out anymore.
Thanks for all the replies and advise.
Susan & Benji -
Miles ate a whole sandwich size ziplock bag of Halloween candy once. He pooped wrappers for days. It did not affect him in the least. I almost didn't even know what had happened- I just came out of the shower to find an empty ziplock on the floor with a hole in it.
I didn't even know it once held candy in it until I put two and two together. There was no other evidence - no candy wrappers anywhere, no smeared chocolate or anything. But when I thought it could have been the Halloween candy that was in the pantry… I went over to him and held his mouth open... GUILTY!! He was so chocolatey smelling!!
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That's too funny - your B ate the wrappers and all!!!
Benji somehow got the little foil wrappers off of the kisses he ate. That's kind of how i determined how many he ate. There looked to be at least 2 different colored wrappers left on the sofa.
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Oh yeh… Lexi unwraps Hershey kisses.
I thought my hubby was not throwing away wrappers... when one day, I saw Lexi jump on the table (something she NEVER does), delicately reach into a very deep bowl, and pull out a single kiss by its thread. She then proceeded to unwrap it oh-so-delicately with her teeth and paws. I could hardly believe my eyes. Of course I got it from her before she ate it... but apparently this was not her first!!
It's surprising what they are able to get into!!
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Dallas has gotten into chocolate a time or two. He got a hold of a butterfinger just recently & had eaten half of it before I found him! He's never had any problems post-chocolate, thankfully.
