What To Do If My Pet Ate Chocolate?

What Actually Makes Chocolate so Bad?

Chocolate is a dangerous substance for cats and dogs. If you asked a 10 year old what you shouldn’t feed your pets, they would probably say grapes or even garlic, but they’d almost definitely say chocolate. So why is chocolate being bad common knowledge? Chocolate contains a component called theobromine. Theobromine is a substance found in cocoa under a chemical group called methylxanthines.

But what’s so bad about methylxanthines? For humans, not a lot. But for animals, they block the adenosine receptors that generally decrease activity in their bodies; the ones that make them feel sleepy. As a result, your pet will feel hyper stimulated, and experience symptoms like nausea, high heart rate, diarrhea, hyperactivity and in severe cases can lead to seizures or death. Oh, and they take a really long time for pets to process. Theobromine takes 17.5 hours to eliminate compared to the usual expected 8-10 hours of food. 

Size Guides

But I’m sure you (and I) have had a pet that got into a small candy stash and fared just fine. So what gives? 

First of all, size matters. Yep. I said it. In this case the size of your pet matters. If a little puppy Chihuahua got into the same amount of chocolate that a fully grown Golden Retriever did, there would be drastically different consequences.

Not only does size matter, but the color of the chocolate matters too. The darker the chocolate, the more likely it will have a higher concentration of theobromine. Theobromine is what gives dark chocolate that bitter taste (that most of us, as humans, love and actually can reap some benefits from). 

If your dog eats chocolate, you should start monitoring them closely and grab the packaging so you know the ingredients list to tell your vet. Even if they aren’t displaying symptoms, it would be a good idea to call your vet so you can get ahead of the problem if it’s more serious than your pet is displaying. 

How We Care for our Chocolate Patients

Here at Alicia Pet Care Center, if we catch the problem early enough, we will induce vomiting to try and get them to expel whatever chocolate was consumed. In a high dose case, activated charcoal may be the appropriate response. If your pet has been vomiting or showing signs of hyperactivity, fluids and hospitalization may be required to treat them. 

I’m not giving you our treatments to encourage you to try them at home first. These treatments are hyper specific to the breed, amount of chocolate and type of chocolate consumed and you should not prepare to treat your pet at home with these options. Even if they seem straightforward. As I said earlier: always call your vet first. 

Case Study… Moby! 

Recently we had Moby come to our office, a 6 year old Golden Retriever who got into some milk chocolate. Moby has a history of seizures. His mom called us and brought him in immediately. Now, from what we’ve learned in this article, a fully grown golden eating a little bit of light milk chocolate shouldn’t be too harmful, right? Moby’s history of seizures helped us determine the next step. We did induce emesis (vomiting) and once we saw all the chocolate was out, we stopped the vomiting and sent him home to get some rest and drink fluids. He is doing just fine now. 🙂 

Symptoms 

Okay and bonus fact, even though we all think of dogs getting into chocolate, chocolate is just as dangerous for cats… maybe they are the superior species because they typically don’t try to break into your chocolate bars??

(My cat is completely insane though and will try to get into anything that even resembles food). 

Some symptoms you should look out for in dogs and cats that may indicate chocolate consumption are vomiting, diarrhea, increased thirst, panting or restlessness, a racing heart rate, muscle tremors. If you see these signs or know that your pet ate any amount of chocolate, you should call your vet. Our office number is 949-768-1313 and we are located in Mission Viejo, California. 

Keep your pets safe, and keep your chocolate away! 

Please give us a call or check out more of our services for any further questions.

And if you want more information about poison prevention, check out this article by our co-lead RVT Sam.