Is chocolate bad for all dogs? What happens when your dog eats chocolate? You’ll find out here.
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Is chocolate bad for all dogs?
Yes, chocolate should never be given to dogs no matter the quantity. If you are thinking of giving chocolate to your dog, keep in mind that it is a food that contains theobromine. This is a bitter-tasting alkaloid from the cocoa tree that dogs metabolize more slowly than humans, accumulating in their organs and becoming toxic. So chocolate is bad for dogs.
Apart from this, it is one of the most common poisonings found in veterinary clinics, especially during festivities such as birthdays and Christmas.
After eating chocolate, the dog has an increase in calcium inside the heart cells, which is responsible for possible arrhythmias. So if a dog eats chocolate, what happens? Find out below.
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Among the various symptoms that chocolate can cause in dogs are vomiting, diarrhea, increased urination, hyperthermia, and hypertension, which appear between 4 and 12 hours after eating chocolate. Likewise, the veterinarian can detect tachycardia during the examination of the animal.
In any case, it must be borne in mind that a dose of chocolate is lethal in dogs if it is between 250 and 300 milligrams per kilogram of the dog’s weight, but an amount of 80 milligrams of chocolate is enough to cause severe intoxication. Even 20 milligrams of this food can cause increased water intake, an urge to urinate, and diarrhea. For all these reasons, and regardless of the amount, chocolate is very toxic for dogs.
Therefore, if you suspect that the dog has ingested chocolate, you should immediately go to the veterinarian, where they will possibly carry out a gastric lavage for the animal in addition to controlling its breathing, bearing in mind that chocolate in dogs is harmful to the health of the animal.
It is also important to evaluate the type of chocolate that was ingested. White chocolate contains the least amount of theobromine, while milk chocolate and dark chocolate pose a greater risk to the animal’s health.
Theobromine in dogs
Theobromine is a plant component that is generated during photosynthesis in the cocoa tree. Although in humans, its metabolization is easy, in the case of dogs, it is slow, tending to accumulate in their system until reaching levels of high toxicity.
The harmful effect of chocolate on dogs can vary depending on the size of the animal and the amount of chocolate, in addition to the type of chocolate, since the purer it is, the greater the concentration of theobromine it will have. Hence, the most dangerous varieties of chocolate are dark chocolate and chocolate coatings, but regardless, any type of chocolate is bad for dogs. And for that reason, we must remember that dogs cannot eat chocolate.
What happens if a dog eats chocolate?
“My dog ate chocolate; what should I do?” owners ask themselves. In these cases, the animal runs the risk of becoming intoxicated in a matter of hours, during which time it can show different types of symptoms:
- Hyperexcitability.
- Vomiting.
- Diarrhea.
- Tremors.
- Fever.
- increased blood pressure.
- Cardiac insufficiency.
- Convulsions.
My dog ate chocolate; what should I do?
If you suspect that your dog has eaten chocolate, you should immediately take it to a veterinary clinic. This is an emergency, bearing in mind that if you manage to eliminate chocolate from its body in less than an hour, the harmful effects of intoxication are reduced.
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And if a dog really eats chocolate, what happens? Then it is likely that the veterinarian will carry out a gastric lavage on the animal, bearing in mind that the ingestion of chocolate in dogs can be drastically harmful to the animal’s health.
In any case, it is recommended to keep any type of food containing chocolate out of the reach of dogs, in addition to monitoring the animal’s behavior if it starts to show the aforementioned symptoms. Don’t forget that dogs cannot eat chocolate.
Finally, based on research, recommendations, and reviews from dog owners, We Feed Raw is one of the best Pet Food company you can ever think of. Their dog foods contain high-quality vitamin and mineral premix, free from chocolate for an added boost of nutrition. Buying your complete dog food from them would save you and your dog alot of harm and stress.
