Chocolate danger

Re: Chocolate danger

Vicky RVN — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:20:02 GMT

I've just eaten some Thorntons...before my tea, slapped wrist!!!

Re: Chocolate danger

Bethany Leonard - Williams RVN — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:03:48 GMT

[quote user="Vicky C"]

What a waste of Thorntons chocs!!!

[/quote]

I totally agree!!!!

Re: Chocolate danger

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:13:53 GMT

We have had a bit of a record going for choc eating dogs this past 2 weeks we have had 9!! used so much apomorphine! such a mess to clean up aswell! happy to report they are all fine!

Re: Chocolate danger

Vicky RVN — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:19:43 GMT

What a waste of Thorntons chocs!!!

Re: Chocolate danger

Bethany Leonard - Williams RVN — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 22:29:07 GMT

well on monday we were discussing seasonal hazards - esp choc poisoning - low and behold at 10pm my boss gets called out to a chihuahua - a large one - that had eaten the top layer of a box of mixed milk, dark and white thorntons belgian truffle chocs!! luckily it had already been sick about 10 times before it got to the surgery so was treated with IVFT, bloods taken and lots of yummy charcoal. went home today was doing fine.

Re: Chocolate danger

Vicky RVN — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:06:16 GMT

[quote user="sal the 1st"]

question from this - we did gastric lavage - one vet thought this was a good idea and the other thought it was a bad idea. What does everybody else do? (the dog had already vomited on the journey down and was collapsed to the extent we could get an et tube in so that the airway was protected)

[/quote]

I don't see why you wouldn't want to do it?

Re: Chocolate danger

Sian Pasquale — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:56:41 GMT

We had our first chocolate poisoning this christmas at the beginning of the week, luckily it was only milk chocolate so had fluids and lots of charcoal and was fine, but very upsettingly we had 2 young cats in with suspected antifreeze poisoning, the client had lost a cat this time last year showing the same symptoms but they didn't know what it was caused by, and she also had another cat go missing and never come back so that could have died from the same thing, we did everything we could but the younger one died just as I was leaving and will wait and see if the older one survived the weekend but I very much doubt it..such a horrible way to die, you want to do everything you can to save them, but its hard to see them suffering.

Re: Chocolate danger

Caro Laithwaite VN — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:12:18 GMT

Not needed gastric just give lots appamorph. Then a lot of charcoal as that traps the chocolate on its way round. It was explained to me via poisons unit lady once that the animals can not excrete the chocolate it just keeps circulating in the body. Charcoal traps it and carries it out the body. Hence lots and lots of charcoal at various times.

However if it was not possible to make it v as it was pretty much collapsed l would have said no option but to lavage what you could. and would have then poured some charcoal down just before the tube was removed to trap what it could on the way through.

Re: Chocolate danger

Sal the 1st — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:45:34 GMT

Re: Chocolate danger

Vicky RVN — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 09:57:49 GMT

Blimey Sal, that dog sounds very lucky to have survived! Many years ago, when i was only a tot, our old dog go into my sisters room and ate easter eggs she'd brought. Don't think my parents were aware of the danger (they never fed it to him though!), and luckily Scamp was fine!

Re: Chocolate danger

christinam — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:07:01 GMT

Had a someone ring today (not a client of ours) was giving her ap- dog his NSAIDS wrapped in a piece of chocolate.....

Re: Chocolate danger

Sal the 1st — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:53:33 GMT

I think the worse one I ever saw was a boxer that had eaten 1/2 pound box of belgian chocs. Collapsed and twitchy on arrival, mms muddy with prolonged CRT. Blood sample when I eventually managed to get into a vein was quite spectacular. serum on the sample wasnt just lipaemic it was solid ( blood was clotting as soon as it hit syringe) tried and tried but was unable to get a sample acceptable to our blood machine or anybody elses in the vicinity. ended up flooding the dog with fluids in the hope we could dilute out some of what was going on inside. Kept an original sample for the lab and when I rang them about it the next day they asked if the dog was dead - it was that bad. 2 days post admission I was able to run the first inhouse bloods without the machine throwing a fit. He survived - one lucky dog!

We did stomach tube him and wash out his stomach - dont know if that made the difference or not?

Re: Chocolate danger

Dodo bird — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:28:08 GMT

i think the cocoa content in dark chocolate is alot higher than milk chocolate which makes it more toxic. I have only seen one dog with chocolate poisoning and never seen any with grape toxicity - but have read about it - also read there is cyanide in apple cores too?? (pips i think?)

Re: Chocolate danger

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:51:57 GMT

a couple of vets I've worked with have even played it down saying only the dark chocolate is the problem. my neighbor's dog apparently likes to steal the grapes out of the fruit bowl. They all find it comical, so I printed out a lovely detailed document regarding how toxic grapes and raisins can be to some dogs! All we can do is educate in some cases.