How does chocolate affect a dog’s health?
September 3, 2010 by admin
Filed under Dog Health
I’ve seen this question before but never have had a simple answer. Can someone please give me scientific reasoning for why chocolate is poisonous for dogs. Does white chocolate (which is not made of cocoa beans and is called chocolate because of the similar texture, I believe) affect dogs as much as milk chocolate or dark chocolate? I’ve heard the word Theobromine used but what does that do in a dog’s system? Can a dog develop an immunity to chocolate like human’s can to poisons? Please and Thank you
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It shuts down the dog’s kidneys. There is a chemical in the chocolate that does this. White chocolate doesn’t have this chemical, and though it is still not healthy at all for your dog, it won’t kill your dog (most of the time). No, they can’t build an immunity to it. It simply shuts down the kidneys or does nothing but upset the stomach.
WELL SWEETIE LIKE CHOCOLATE IS LIKE POISON TO DOGS AND DEATH COULD POSSIBLE BE IMMEDIATE. i mean what kind of more reasoning do you need to know? duh!
also dont feed grapes or raisins. duh–why try and make it seem like WELL IF I FEED CHOCOLATE IN JULY AND NOT JUNE HE MAY NOT DIE? THERE IS NO immunity to chocolate. perhaps according to your dogs weight, health amount of chocolate etc..maybe he will just get sick and not die.
its toxic but not as bad as they say…1 lb for every 15 lbs of dog..it would take alot
It’s the theobromine, what you’ve heard of before!
Theobromine is very similar to caffeine. It’s a stimulant, and it causes the heart to beat super fast until it stops. Other symptoms include vomiting, seizures, and internal bleeding. The reason it’s so bad is because dogs are unable to digest the theobromine… as carnivores, they have no need to digest it in the wild so they just can’t.
Baker’s chocolate is the worst, dark chocolate is second worst, milk chocolate is third worst, and white chocolate (as you suspected) has hardly any theobromine in it and is usually OK.
Here’s the fatal doses for different types of chocolate…
white chocolate: very little theobromine, 200 ounces per pound of body weight… so the dog would need to eat way over its own weight in white chocolate to do damage
milk chocolate: 1 ounce per pound
dark chocolate: 1/3 ounce per pound
baker’s chocolate: 1/10 ounce per pound
So two little pieces of baker’s chocolate is fatal to a small dog. They can’t develop an immunity- they are simply physically incapable of digesting it.
It causes nervous disorders since its like a neuro toxin to dogs and your dog may have tremors,seizures,phits,convulsions if fed in large quantities.