The Truth About Feeding Your Dog Chocolate — A Canine Killer?

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We’ve all heard that chocolate is dangerous for dogs.

It is, unfortunately, 100% true. Too many animals have died from eating this sweet delicacy.

Can I Give My Dog Chocolate?Knowing that chocolate can literally kill your dog, the plan is very simple:

Play it safe and don’t share, no exceptions.

And take it a step further!

Check ingredients when feeding people foods because chocolate is added to all sorts of snacks.

Thankfully, it usually takes a fair amount of consumption for serious toxicity.

Never Let Your Dog Eat Chocolate

Not as a treat, not even as a one-time reward.

Pure chocolate, which is made from cacao beans, deserves its scary reputation with dog owners.

Different Types of Chocolate

Chocolate comes in many forms and various levels of toxicity.

Pure cocoa and dark chocolate generally pose the biggest threat to dogs.

Milk, white chocolate or even Nutella aren’t recommended either, but they may not be as potent.

The point is this:

Be very careful about sharing with your dog, even something seemingly harmless like chocolate ice cream.

Complications For Canines

The caffeine in chocolate can really put your dog’s life in jeopardy. This, in itself, could cause entirely avoidable health issues.

What’s much worse is that enough chocolate may be fatal.

Why exactly does this happen?

It’s due to a substance called Theobromine.

The fact is dogs cannot metabolize this cacao alkaloid as well as humans can.

The Unpredictable Effects

Your pet’s circulatory and respiratory systems could be seriously affected.

Everything from seizures to an irregular heartbeat to internal bleeding can develop when your dog eats chocolate.

The effects range greatly in severity ie. a minor upset stomach could occur, but death isn’t out of the question either.

Theobromine Toxicity

Has your dog has gotten their paws on some chocolate?

You need to act fast!

Do not wait for the following early signs:

  • Erratic behavior
  • Extreme thirst
  • Bouts of diarrhea
  • Unexplained bursts of energy
  • Panting and even seizures

Hopefully your dog will vomit up most of the chocolate which would reduce the toxicity to some degree.

Providing hydrogen peroxide may be necessary to avoid the deadly effects.

In any case, reach out to your vet following a chocolate mishap. The situation could be quite serious, even fatal.

Get Veterinary Help ASAP

By now you know that anything with chocolate, even brownies for example, is great cause for concern.

Your dog will have a higher chance of recovery the sooner you act.

Chocolate toxicity can last up to 72 hours with the early hours being most critical.

The Bottom Line

Never allow your dog to have any amount of chocolate.

Such a treat can easily harm, if not kill, a pet pooch.

The Theobromine in chocolate cannot be properly metabolized and could, instead, be quite deadly.

All kinds of cocoa are unacceptably risky for dogs. Any variety is strictly off limits.

What Do You Think? Have Your Say Below…

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9 thoughts on “The Truth About Feeding Your Dog Chocolate — A Canine Killer?”

  1. I quite agree with the vet’s point of view as I have never given my dogs human chocolate. I have given them animal doggie chocolate as it contains ash which is good for the digestive system of your dog as a treat. Not too much, one or two is enough.

  2. I know it is bad but my dog has had whole boxes of chocolates and he didn’t get sick at all.

    1. That’s very hard to believe.

    2. Elisabeth says:

      Several friends of mine did the same thing and had the same results.

  3. My friend’s dog ate a whole container of brownies and he was fine.

  4. It’s actually not the caffeine, but chocolate having effects similar to an overdose of caffeine. And its toxicity depends hugely on what kind of chocolate. For example, white chocolate barely counts as chocolate at all and could be eaten in huge amounts.

    Even a mid-sized dog would probably be fine after eating an entire bag of milk chocolate chocolate chips. It’s the harder stuff where the real concern kicks in, with semi-sweet, call the vet, ASAP. With anything higher than semi-sweet such as dark chocolate, straight cocoa, baker’s chocolate, etc. Even small amounts can be fatal.

    So, should you feed your dog chocolate chip cookies with semi-sweet chocolate chips? Probably not, but neither is it likely to send them to doggie heaven. The overall level of chocolate is relatively low compared to the weight of the dog. But straight up chocolate is a huge no-no, and most especially the darker variants.

  5. Although the information above is good, it still does not really tell why to not give a dog chocolate. I have given my dog little bites of chocolate since he was a puppy. He is now 5 years old and he’s fine so what is the big deal?

  6. No! It is a dog killer. If your dog feels left out, give them a treat.

    1. My Auntie’s dog regularly ate ‘English’ chocolate with 25% cocoa content all his life and he lived to about 18! The Theobromine in cocoa can only be slowly metabolized by a dog. If they eat a little chocolate occasionally it won’t hurt.

      White chocolate contains almost no Theobromine (1% compared to dark chocolate) so that can be given more regularly. All chocolate contains a lot of fat that is also not good for a dog.

      Allow your doggy just a little. Something like 5% of a single-person bar every now and then. He’ll love you lots without giving you vet bills!

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