Hot Chocolate!

It's one of the most common toxicity emergency calls we get -- "My dog ate chocolate!" But rarely does the pooch eat high quality chocolate or a large enough quantity for it to be a problem. The primary toxic ingredients in the best chocolates are high levels of theobromine and caffeine, which can cause vomiting, diarrhea, heart palpitations and arrhythmia, tremors, seizures and even death.  Unsweetened cocoa and baking chocolates are the worst kitchen culprits with a few ounces being toxic for 40-lb dog. However, I've met plenty of huge hounds who inhaled bags of less toxic milk chocolate (foil wrappers and all) resulting in agitation and vomiting.

Late last week, we got the standard "my dog ate chocolate" call about a 10-year-old dog who knew how to open the pantry cabinets. Besides eating 14 bars of high-quality dark chocolate (what a waste!) Zuni shredded and nibbled jello boxes, bouillon cubes and various other items. Based on Zuni's weight and the amount and type of chocolate ingested, we quickly determined this was a real problem! At our instructions the owners administered hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting, but Zuni didn't produce anything until the car ride into the clinic. The few small piles of vomit smelled purely of rich warm chocolate.

Zuni's examination fortunately was fairly normal aside from a bloated appearance, some trembling which we determined was due to nervousness and a mild heart murmur of which we have yet to determine the significance. We decided to induce vomiting again since Zuni's stomach was still quite distended. The more chocolate we can get out within two hours of ingestion the less toxicity we will have.

Dr. Kim Everson walking a chocolate-eating
dog outside with piles of steaming hot
chocolate vomit visible in the snow.

Rather than repeat hydrogen peroxide, we administered a more potent emetic -- a derivative of morphine -- into the corner of Zuni's eye. (Weird, I know.) Within 10 minutes, Zuni looked pretty unhappy, drooling and swallowing hard with nausea. We rinsed the medication from her eye and applied eye drops to soothe the redness. I took her outside for a little jog to jiggle her stomach contents and Eureka! Zuni produced one large pile of steaming hot chocolate after another, five prodigious piles in total scattered in the January snow.

Once it was clear that her stomach was finally empty, we returned to the examination room crowing with victory. (Well, I was crowing. Poor Zuni felt pretty miserable, her joy in devouring a cabinet full of groceries finally subdued.) Our decontamination task was not yet complete, however. Next we administered activated charcoal to bind up the theobromine and caffeine still in her GI tract. The owners were instructed to repeat this at home every couple of hours throughout the night and into the next day.

The owners were also advised to monitor for neurological symptoms but especially diarrhea in the coming days. Any residual wrappers are expected to wad up and pass in her stool, but they will likely cause a lot of scraping and scratching inside. A daily probiotic supplement was suggested for the next couple of days, at least, to help her gut heal. We will also be evaluating Zuni again in the near future to determine if the heart murmur has resolved or requires a further work up.

Dogs eat a ton of stuff that really isn't very good for them, and usually they emerge from the experience relatively unscathed. In the kitchen, care should be taken to keep chocolate, grapes and raisins, macadamia nuts, onions and garlic, moldy food, uncooked potatoes, bread dough and xylitol artificial sweeteners (found in chewing gum, for example) way out of their reach! If your pet does eat any of these things, call your veterinarian for advice. The dietary indiscretion might turn out to be no big deal, but a simple phone call could save your pet's life.

We (people) all scream for ice cream!

Over the past year, I have talked about the dangers of feeding certain people foods to pets: grapes, brats, and chocolate have received special attention. Just the other day a client asked me to discuss the effects of feeding your dog dairy products like ice cream.

Now hold on. Before you begin to worry that you've been inadvertently poisoning your pooch with Wisconsin's finest dairy products, let me just say that this particular class of people food is not toxic. Many dogs and cats can and do enjoy a little dairy here and there with no obvious ill effect. But for some pets dairy should definitely be avoided.

First off, a chubby pet should not get people food period. It is just too hard to count calories for your pet when people food is involved. And just as a human dieter would be especially careful with sweets like ice cream, pudgy puppies and cobby kitties should lay off these treats too.

So what about those fit and active pets? Should they shy away from ice cream and other dairy treats? The short answer is "it depends." It may surprise you to learn that many dogs and cats are lactose intolerant. This means a saucer of cream for Kitty or spoonful of yogurt for Fido may result in vomiting, diarrhea or a belly ache.

Shadow, a black lab with chronic digestive problems, is a prime example of how dairy can be disastrous for dogs. When Shadow was rescued from the shelter, she was severely underweight. She suffered from diarrhea, vomiting and had elevated liver enzymes. After repeated courses of medications, she recovered from these ailments, but soon showed up at the clinic with severe pain in her back end. Diagnosed with hip dysplasia, Shadow was treated with a short course of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication and started on several long term joint supplements. Like many Labradors, Shadow also suffered from allergy aggravations and periodically needed treatment for itchy skin infections.

Fast forward a few years. Shadow returns to the veterinary clinic now overweight and with her allergies in full swing. Moreover, her owners are worried that her liver problems are back because Shadow pretty much always has diarrhea and vomits nearly every day. Happily Shadow's bloodwork comes back perfectly normal! Her fecal tests show nothing infectious. She appears to be happy and healthy -- certainly she is not wasting away! Based on her history of allergies, we decide to put Shadow on a special hypoallergenic diet. The owners are careful not to give any people food or treats during this time and Shadow's GI problems improve -- but only marginally. Frustrated, we sit down again and brain storm. What could be making Shadow sick?

Finally, we remember her joint supplement, a natural anti-inflammatory derived from milk. Could that be the culprit? Worried that Shadow's hips will act up if we stop the supplement, we nonetheless feel it's worth a try. Her owners stop the supplement but change nothing else. Sure enough, Shadow's vomiting stops immediately. Her stools start firming up soon after. Darn that dairy intolerance! Luckily Shadow's other non-dairy joint supplements are up to the challenge and she is doing fine now. No vomiting, no diarrhea, no hip pain and amazingly even her allergies are less severe this summer.

Shadow's case is dramatic, but it is probably not unique. Many pets eat milk, cheese, ice cream and yogurt. Many pets also suffer from apparently unexplained bouts of vomiting and soft stools. Is there a cause-and-effect relationship here? Perhaps. If you share dairy with your pet and he happens to suffer from frequent gastric disturbances it might be worthwhile to lay off the dairy entirely for a while to see if the belly aches subside. You can always choose a pet-friendly non-dairy substitute for that real Wisconsin ice cream!

What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Better Not be Your Dog!

Picking up dog poop has become a very interesting and unsettling experience for me lately. In an effort to reduce our landfill waste, my family has been setting aside produce scraps, coffee grounds and overripe fruit for our backyard compost heap. These organic "greens", mixed properly with "browns" such as old leaves and straw, do not tend to attract varmints (such as gluttonous yellow Labradors). However, having this week found dog poop consisting mostly of whole green grapes I think something has gone awry with my compost heap.

The grape poop is concerning for a couple of reasons. The least of my worries is that one of my exuberant children is stocking the compost heap improperly meaning the pile will not mature as quickly. More concerning is the fact that my dog is obviously gorging himself on a potentially toxic fruit -- grapes. 

In spite of the fact that some dogs have historically eaten grapes with no obvious ill effect, grape ingestion has been repeatedly and definitively linked with sudden kidney failure in dogs. No one knows for sure the exact number of grapes or raisins necessary to cause toxicity, but cases have been documented involving from over a pound of grapes to as little as a single serving of raisins!

Toxicities have been seen involving all varieties of grapes, home-grown and store-bought. Affected dogs usually begin vomiting within a few hours after eating the fruit and then develop diarrhea, tiredness, abdominal pain and decreased appetite. Partially digested grapes might be seen in the vomit or diarrhea. (Hmmm, the poop grapes I've seen are whole ... maybe EdGrrr has been spared because he doesn't chew? One can hope...) Kidney enzyme elevations are typically seen on bloodwork anywhere from 24 hours to several days after the grapes are eaten.

Immediate and aggressive veterinary intervention is crucial to give an affected dog its best chance for survival. As damage within the kidneys progresses to end-stage kidney failure, urine production stops completely and euthanasia is typically performed due to the grave prognosis for the pet. Fortunately, with early detection, decontamination, intensive-care hospitalization and monitoring, dogs can survive the immediate threat of grape and raisin toxicity.

Even if your dog has eaten grapes or raisins in the past with no obvious ill effect, the safest advice is to avoid feeding any grapes, raisins or other dried fruits to your pet until this toxicity is better understood. As for EdGrrr? I think he has once again dodged a bullet in his ongoing battle with dietary excess. And my family will need to fine tune our kitchen waste composting techniques.

P.S. Compost Joe's Premium Soils & Organics regularly offers group and individualized home composting lessons. Equipment for backyard composting and finished compost is also available.

No Chocolate Bunnies (or Mulch) for Fido

This week I met an adorable Pit Bull mix puppy whose dining habits were making her owner nervous. "Oh, Minnie just loves to eat decaying fish," the owner lamented and she went on to list some of the other weird and disgusting items on which her puppy enjoyed chewing. Minnie's self-selected treats are mostly harmless, but the owner stopped up short when she came to cocoa bean mulch. "And I just heard that cocoa bean mulch is toxic to dogs!" she exclaimed, reminding me that this is a timely blog topic.

With the "winter that wasn't" officially over, people are tending to their lawns and gardens. Some may consider using cocoa bean mulch as a natural fertilizer. Made from spent cocoa beans used in chocolate production, cocoa bean mulch is organic, deters slugs and snails, and gives a garden an appealing chocolate smell. However, it also may attract dogs,* who can be poisoned by eating too much of the mulch.

Like chocolate, a well known no-no for pets, cocoa beans contain the stimulants caffeine and theobromine. Dogs are highly sensitive to these chemicals, called methylxanthines. Low doses of methylxanthine can cause mild gastrointestinal upset such as vomiting, diarrhea, or abdominal pain. Higher doses can cause rapid heart rate, muscle tremors, seizures, and even death.

Cocoa mulch has a higher concentration of toxic chemicals per ounce than milk chocolate. As an example, a 50-pound dog can experience serious side effects from eating more than 5 ounces of mulch. Whether cocoa mulch or chocolate, the severity of toxicity is related to the size of the dog and the amount of mulch eaten. Fortunately, to date, no fatal cases of cocoa mulch toxicity have been reported to the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)Animal Poison Control Center.


If you suspect that your dog has eaten cocoa bean mulch, contact your veterinarian right away. Treatment will depend on how much cocoa bean mulch your dog has eaten, when it was eaten, and whether your dog is sick. Recommended care may include placing your dog under veterinary observation, inducing vomiting, and controlling a rapid heartbeat or seizures with medications and supportive care.

*Although dogs are most likely to chomp on cocoa mulch, cats, rabbits and other pets should not be allowed to nibble this particular mulch either.

Deck the Halls -- and Avoid an Emergency Visit to Your Vet

It's a well known fact among veterinary professionals...emergency cases spike around holidays and full moons. As a pet owner you can't do a thing to prevent astrological influences on your pet's health, but you can create a pet-safe holiday environment.

1. People food is not for pets. It's tempting, I know, to share a chunk of turkey or the ham bone with your furry family member. However, gastrointestinal upset ranging from a little diarrhea to pancreatitis, broken teeth, or intestinal infection is the most common veterinary complaint following holiday meals.
2. Some sweets are toxic treats. Chocolate is probably  the most well known toxic sweet; however,the cookie tray and buffet table may contain other less obvious threats to pets. Macadamia nuts, avocado, grapes/raisins, onions/garlic/chives, and goodies containing xylitol artificial sweetener should not be ingested by pets.
3. Dangerous drinks? I'm sure some dogs love to lick the foam off a good brew, but really...alcohol should be kept away from pets. Also keep your pets away from caffeinated beverages such as coffee and tea.  Egg nog (even alcohol-free) is not a good choice for pets either. Fresh water is still the best.
4. Pets and fire safety. Each holiday season fires kill hundreds and cost millions in damages. The warmth and beauty of a flaming candle or crackling fire can quickly turn disastrous in the presence of a curious cat or a wagging tail. Never leave burning candles unattended.
5. Hang the mistletoe up high. Many holiday plants can be toxic to pets. Make sure no one nibbles the holly, mistletoe, poinsettia or lillies in your holiday decor.
6. Tree tip #1: Tinsel is beautiful on the tree but wreaks havoc on the digestive tract. Avoid emergency surgery for your cat by steering clear of this holiday hazard.
7. Tree tip #2: Electric shocks and oral burns can occur when curious pets chew or play with strands of lights. Keep light strands out of reach to reduce the risk of injury and fire. 
8. Tree tip #3: Home-made garlands of cranberries and popcorn may tempt pets into mischief. My darling yellow lab EdGrrr once devoured the natural garlands I draped on an outdoor evergreen for the birdies. Imagine the disaster if he had clambered up our indoor tree! Also the string, like tinsel, could lead to intestinal dangers.
9. Fragile family heirlooms? Like toddlers, pets don't understand how to behave around your precious antique stemware. Best to keep your fragile treasures out of harm's way entirely.
10. Gift trimmings are not cat toys. Ribbons, bells and other pretty trimmings can be choking hazards or cause intestinal blockage if swallowed. Plus it spoils the surprise if Fluffy inadvertently unwraps the gifts under the tree!

Heeding these holiday warnings does not mean furry family members have to be left out of the festivities. On average pet owners will spend $46 on gifts for their pets during the 2011 holiday season. Topping the gift list are toys and treats. From experience, I suggest you hide the gift wrapped tasty treats until the appointed moment of celebration or Fido and Fluffy may just help themselves a little early!