Chocolate is very bad for dogs! Some will tell you their dogs have eaten chocolate all their life . . it is NOT something they should eat. Milk chocolate isn’t as bad for them as is dark chocolate and Baker’s chocolate. They should never have chocolate of any kind!
We almost lost Speck four years ago when he got into some chocolate. You would think I would have learned my lesson but no . . apparently not!
Monday night I made the Chocolate Sesame Seed Cookies to take to our sewing day at quilt guild. I used Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate which is not as bad as unsweetened chocolate would have been, but still pretty risky for a dog. After guild, I brought the remaining cookies home in a zipper bag and put them on the table. Last night after dinner Vince was looking for the cookies. We had been out dealing with the chickens and watering the garden and then I saw it . . the zipper bag on the floor, torn open and cookies missing.
I’m guessing that when Vince was picking some things up off the table, he either knocked the bag off, or more likely, it was hanging over the edge of the table and Speck jumped and hit it til he made it fall.
We gave him hydrogen peroxide to get him to throw up but he never did. We have activated charcoal but couldn’t find it so at 9:30 p.m., which isn’t late for most folks but was like the middle of night for us to be out . . we all three went to Wal-Mart. I’m not quite sure why Vince wanted Speck and me to go but we went and we stayed in the car while he went in and bought more charcoal.
We got enough down him that we were comfortable, even though we weren’t sure how many cookies he had consumed. There were still plenty left in the bag so I don’t think he got too many. I slept on the sofa with Speck and it was a rough night but so far, he seems to be doing ok. They say they can be in danger for 24 hours after eating it so he’s not out of the woods yet but . . we’re hopeful.
You’d think I’d be way more careful than to let him get chocolate again but he did. Please be careful with your pets and be more careful that I’ve been about where you put that chocolate!
Karin says
hoping for the best! I am so glad my dogs are SO good about not getting things off tables. But, if it gets knocked on the floor, that’s another story! My mom had a dog that would get onto her counter top and eat whole tubs of margarine, whole batches of cookies (that was peanut butter, but it was still NOT good), whole loaves of bread, etc. My mom started keeping the bread in a drawer and the dog figured out how to open the drawer! Then, she finally put a child lock on the drawer and that fixed the problem (other than the margarine on the counter!)
Gwen says
Hopefully you enough in him to get past this. Our very first doxie got into Hershey’s kisses when he was between two and three months old. Ate through the wrapper of a new bag! He ate enough of the bag and foil wrappers to throw up very shortly. He lived to be one month short of 17. One of his favorite foods was seedless grapes which we now know are not good for them. So far we have kept the three we have now away for things they shouldn’t have. One still had to spend a weekend at the vet’s with gastroentiritis. Never have found a reason for that. Hoping for a speedy recovery for Speck.
FrancesB says
Poor little guy. Hope all goes well with Speck.
Sue in Scottsdale, AZ says
Hope everything is A-OK with Speck. A food other foods to keep away from dogs are onions, grapes and raisins. These all can be poisonous to them.
Robin Crittenden says
Pray that he will just get through this with nothing more than an upset tummy. and dont blame yourself, stuff happens.
Diana in RR Texas says
Shortly after My Mother died my Dad accendently left a bag of Hershey Kisses on the end table. Tilly II ate the whole bag. Dad got her to the vet, Jane checked her out and told him to watch her for the next 24 to 36 hours. She made it thru and then came to live with us shortly after that. She missed Mom too much and Dad thought she needed to be in different surroundings.
Ranch Wife says
Well here’s hoping that Speck will soon be feeling chipper again. We had a Beagle that had a stomach made of titanium. Being a Hound, he ate anything and everything in his path and if it wasn’t in his path, he made a path to it. We always laughed and said we should have named him Hoover. One Easter he confiscated a 1# chocolate bar. He never even blinked. We had some contractors here and they left their truck door open and Tucker stole their lunch…candy bars and all. I need to write about him, but we just lost him and I’m still too sad. Hug Speck for me and shake a loving finger at him for eating your cookies.
Sherry V. says
We have all “been there, done that”. . . . so don’t be too hard on yourself. My first dog, Bogart, got into my tote bag and ate an entire block of fudge. I had forgotten that it was in my tote bag & left the tote on the floor.
What was so funny is that he unwrapped the fudge before he ate it!! LOL Yup, I found the wrapper on the floor the next morning — no chew holes or anything; just plain ol’ unwrapped.
He lived quite a few years after that. . . . but I had to be careful because he was one of the nosiest dogs I have ever seen!!
Sending hugs to you & Speck.
Debbie Rhodes says
Oh Judy been there done that. My Tag (10lb poodle) got a bag of chocolate left on coffee table.. I fed him hydrogen peroxide and put him on a leash and ran him around the yard with me bawling my head off until he threw the chocolate up… I cried for hours.. and watched him all night.. never want to go through that again. Glad Speck is okay…
Debra says
And I found my little dog recently calmly chewing up my pincushion. I went looking for the pins, and found them all in a pile in his crate. Apparently he’d removed them all before consuming the pincushion! It’s a wonder these dogs survive.
Freda Henderson says
My brothers little dog had seizures after eating some Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. Chocolate is very bad for some dogs, our Jazzy don’t get any either.
Melinda says
And then there’s my dog, the 90 pound Saint Bernard who inhaled 2 cups of milk chocolate chips by eating through the ziplock bag they were in. She was very hyper for about 3 hours, but seemed to be okay otherwise.
NOT that I’ll let her do that again. She’s developed a bad habit of taking things off the counters when I’m not around.
Patty says
Judy I had a springer spaniel who would just go crazy for chocolate. It was like he was addicted to the stuff, No I didn’t ever feed it to him on purpose but once he got into and ate four packages of chocolate that I had wrapped for teacher gifts for James’s teachers. Nothing happened, he never got sick and lived to the ripe old age of 13. I know we were really lucky.I’ve never seen anything like it.
JudyL says
You’re lucky! Speck was way sicker when he ate the chocolate covered coffee beans. That night was horrible and I was afraid last night was going to be just as bad and while it was bad, it wasn’t that bad.
Glen in Louisiana says
The problem was that your hydrogen peroxide was too old. It no longer works if it is more than about 6 months old. So every once in a whilel you have to get a new fresh one.
I use the old one in my laundry. It removes stains and odors and keeps the laudryry fresh. It is the ingredient in oxy clean.
Fresh hydrogen peroxide will hit the dogs stomach and come right back up. We say, spoon it down and stand back!!!!
Or go get another bottle!!
Hope Speck is better
JudyL says
It was brand new. We bought two of them last week when I cut my leg. I had finished off an older bottle yesterday morning and opened a brand new bottle last night for Speck.
He still seeks ok so I think we’ve dodged a bullet.
Toni in TN says
What gets me is why do they eat these things? Has anyine done research on this?
Debbie Harmon says
Back in the 70’s my cousin was a high school majorette and they each had a large box of large chocolate bars to sell as a fundraiser. Her doxie at all of them. Back then we did not know it could make dogs sick so we didn’t worry about it. Another time they made french fries and left the oil in the pan on the stove overnight. That same crazy dog ate all of it! Debbie in WV
Vicky says
Like Gwen, my first doxie got into a 10 lb box of Christmas candy kisses. She was sick as …. wekkm sick as a dog! Had to go to the vet for a stomach pump, and, frankly, pooped red and green foil for a week. Such a fun time (rolls eyes here). And like Gwen’s doxie, mine lived to be a month shy of 17. So I guess there no long-term effects, but it sure was scary at the time! Hope Speck is okay!!!
Linda in NE says
Dogs are a lot like people that way……always wanting to eat what’s bad for them. I’m glad Speck’s doing OK after his cookie eating adventure.
Kim Paventy says
Hey Judy, pets can be so much fun! My 12 pound rat terrier ate a whole pan of fudge on Christmas Eve. So we looked up what we needed to do on Goggle. We discovered that pouring salt down a dog’s throat makes them barf REALLLLY fast.
Norma V says
hope speck pulls through…we had a border collie eat almost a full box of see’s candy…..left the one that was covered in foil…never bothered her..but she was a bigger dog..
Maxi says
Our little boy Bichon, Skamper, was bitten by a rattlesnake on Labor Day. We almost lost him but after three days in the emergency hospital and a lot of $$, he is home and getting back to normal. He had gone out his doggie door to the concrete, fenced dog run. The snake was a Mojave Green. Now I am paranoid that there may be more.
I sure hope Speck is fine by now. Keep us posted
Julie B in UK says
Once, when I was ill in bed, a friend came round and left me a box of chocolates on a shelf in our shed, expecting me to find it when I got up. Our old Beagle found them first! He ate every single one, plus most of the packaging. I found the rest of the packaging hours later when it was too late to do anything. He was fine! Another time, we left hime with a dogsitter whilst going on holiday and before we were even on the ferry he had stolen a very large block of chocolate and scoffed the lot. The vet put him on a drip for 24 hours that time and we came home to a very large vets bill!
Chris B says
Our babysitter made her boyfriend a beautiful chocolate cake. She iced it, decorated it, and left it on the counter. My HUGE Great Dane thanked her and ate half of it! That was before we knew chocolate was bad for dogs. She sliced off the chewed half and re-iced it. The boyfriend was none the wiser and Tyson lived another 8 years. He was a very bad food thief.
Kell says
Hope Speck is doing better. Our min pin has gotten some chocolate when we’ve been baking but I don’t recall anything that bad. A guy my dad works with dog got a whole bag of chocolate chips when his wife was making cookies a couple of years ago around the holidays. They had to take him to the vet for it. The vet told them from now on they would have to be really careful with any chocolate because once a dog gets a taste of it they keep looking for it.