Chocolate??

[Louisa]

I know that it probably depends, but how much chocolate can a dog eat before they are in trouble? Can some dogs eat chocolate and be fine? This one has me perplexed because we had an "incident" on labor day where pooh ate a full king sized Reese peanut butter pumpkin that my nephew left on a lawn chair outside unwrapped. He says he went to get a drink and when he went back out the pumpkin was completely gone and pooh was finishing the last of it. I was worried because no vet I knew of was in other than emergency and I didn't want to take him in. I called around etc and ended up leaving him be and keeping an eye on him. He is fine and is no different than usual and that was a good hunk of chocolate for a ten pound dog. He seems fine and is his normal wiggly happy self. Anyone ever have your dog eat chocolate?? Anything happen? What did you do? How long do you watch them for?

[BEAU]

It depends on what kind of chocolate (milk chocolate is not so bad, dark chocolate is the worst), and how much they eat in proportion to how much the dog weighs.
There are sites you can look up online to find out how much of each type would be safe to eat.
The only one that we've had problems with eating chocolate has been Poop, and it's been milk chocolate...
Let's put it this way... he would have had to have eaten enough to make him get sick from eating so much to get sick from the chocolate! LOL
Either way, it is best to keep it away from them. We just have naughty kids who leave rocky road fudge (on more than one occasion) in their room, and Poop got it.

[TherapyGolden]

With something like Reeses, only the shell is chocolate so it is not as much chocolate as you would think. Also it is milk chocolate which contains less theobromine than other varieties. Theobromine is the chemical in chocolate which is bad for dogs. Baker's chocolate contains the highest amounts of theobromine, semi-sweet chocolate contains less and milk chocolate contains the least.  However all of those types can be harmful to dogs, it just depends on the amount they eat and the size of the dog. For example just two ounces of baker's chocolate contains a toxic level of theobromine for a 20-pound dog.

 Cocoa powder, cocoa mulch and other cocoa products can also contain potentially harmful levels of theobromine.

[Marge]

I know that it probably depends, but how much chocolate can a dog eat before they are in trouble? Can some dogs eat chocolate and be fine? This one has me perplexed because we had an "incident" on labor day where pooh ate a full king sized Reese peanut butter pumpkin that my nephew left on a lawn chair outside unwrapped. He says he went to get a drink and when he went back out the pumpkin was completely gone and pooh was finishing the last of it. I was worried because no vet I knew of was in other than emergency and I didn't want to take him in. I called around etc and ended up leaving him be and keeping an eye on him. He is fine and is no different than usual and that was a good hunk of chocolate for a ten pound dog. He seems fine and is his normal wiggly happy self. Anyone ever have your dog eat chocolate?? Anything happen? What did you do? How long do you watch them for?

We had a dog die of chocolate poisoning.  However, she ate a box of baking chocolate and a 2 lb bag of semi-sweet chocolate morsels.  She died within 24 hours.

So if it's been longer than that without problems he probably will be fine.  But as someone else pointed out it depends on the size of the dog, the amount of chocolate eaten and the type of chocolate.

Here's a link with one chart http://www.talktothevet.com/ARTICLES/DOGS/chocolatetoxic.HTM  There are plenty of others.

Since then if the dogs get into chocolate (and they have - 3 year old daughter left a easter basket of candy on a chair rather than the shelf I'd had it - and a dog that ate an entire (and big)  batch of chocolate chip cookies) they also get treated to hydrogen peroxide to make them throw it up.

Marge

[Louisa]

Marge, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Thank you guys so much. I haven't noticed anything at all wrong or out of sorts. Therapygolden, you're very right it was actually mostly peanut butter. For some reason, I couldn't remember how much was too much.  I really appreciate all the info and I am bookmarking it to have. 

[saucyaussies]

If it happens again, just to set your mind at ease, throw a teaspoon of salt at the back of the dog's throat.  Most dogs will quickly and efficiently throw up everythign they've just eaten.  I find the salt works much  better than the peroxide, faster and they get it all out rather than throwing up multiple times with the peroxide.