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23-03-2004, 05:32 PM

In article , wrote:

these are the same ninnies get their shorts all twisted over feeding
grapes to dogs.
Needless to say, there is absolutely no scientific evidence grapes are
poisonous, all
they got are a few anecdotal incidents.
we have one of the worst chocoholic dogs on earth... he LOVES chocolate
to the point
of ripping apart my husbands briefcase to get to it. but he has never
shown the
slightest inclination to eat cocoa bean mulch. There may be a few
strange dogs out
there, and puppies are notorious for putting everything in their mouth.

but dont not use it because some dog MAY munch it. dont use it cause it
really isnt
that great. Ingrid

Hello Ingrid:
Grapes you're not supposed to give to INFANTS because they can lodge in
infants' throats. If some idiot said that meant they were toxic to dogs, I
sure never heard that one, you must know some particularly stupid people.
But as for chocolate, hooboy, could you never be more wrong! I guarantee
if you whip up a nice watering bowl with a little pure bakers' cooking
chocolate dissolved in it, or give the dogs a couple pieces each of fresh
fudge made from pure bakers chocolate, you'll see them go into cardiac
arrest, incur an extravagant vet bill, & probably loose the animals
because there is no cure for theobromine poisoning & all a vet can do is
try to keep them hydrated through the worst of it & keep fingers crossed.
It's not a 'maybe could happen' sort of thing, no more than if you fed
them strychnnine.

Processed chocolate has very little real chocolate in it, therefore very
little theobromine. The chances of an ignorant child or a foolish adult
killing their dog with the occasional piece of Hershey's milk chocolate is
so slight as to be unlikely, though some dogs will even on such small
doses vomit or get muscular spasms There are many cases of dogs getting
sick even off milk chocolate, but not dying, & usually it means they got
into a great deal of candy while an owner's back was turned. The
theobromine levels in milk chocolate are so low that a fatal dose would
take a four pounds of chocolate to achieve; a single candybar might or
might not cause mild side-effects. Hershey's Milk Chocolate is sugar &
milk & emulsifiers & so on, not healthy, but not much toxin either. But a
surprisingly small amount of pure Baker's chocolate would dehydrate &
kill a dog within the day. VERY toxic to dogs, but nevertheless some
people refuse to believe it because they've shared their milk chocolates
with Bowser & Rufus too often & never killed them.

As for cocoa mulch, it does have many times the theobromine as a chocolate
bar, but only a fraction of what's in bakers chocolate. Its degree of
danger is still very slight compared to pure baker's chocolate, because a
dog would have to be neurotic to eat enough mulch to get more than mildly
ill. The often repeated baseless data that 2 to 5 ounces of cocoa mulch
can kill an average sized dog is false, & was generated by PETA & widely
distributed during a political campaign against Foreman's & Home Depot.
PETA simultaneously alleged that cocoa mulch kills cats, which is
impossible. The 5 ounce measure has often been repeated since, but an
independent analysis done by University of Illinois professors Wiesbrook &
Gwaltney-Brant said it would take 12 ounces to kill a dog, & even that is
an estimate that sought to err on the side of caution.

A lethal dose of theobromine from milk chocolate would require a dog in
the 50 to 65 pound range to eat FOUR POUNDS to reach a toxic level. This
is why no child ever killed its dog sharing one little piece of chocolate,
unwise though that sharing may be. Cocoa mulch has four times the
theobromine, therefore it is easy to speculate that one pound of mulch
would be just as toxic to the dog -- if only you can convince the dog to
eat a pound of shells with so great an ease. Only a neurotic dog would get
so far, so the "fact" in this case is that a very unhappy miserable dog
with neurotic behaviors including devouring cocoa mulch just might kill
itself. But there is no question that dogs have presented to veterinarians
with cocoa mulch poisoning, though outright deaths are extremely rare.
Deaths are extremely common for dogs that got into pastries or fudge made
from pure Bakers chocolate, however.

If a large dog could manage to stomach between twelve ounces & a pound of
cocoa mulch, it probably would die. That much is true. Pile up that much
of the stuff & then try to imagine any dog finishing it off! What are the
serious odds of a dog eating three-quarters of a pound to a pound of such
lightweight stuff at a go? We're talking about a threat to dogs that are
already psychologically damaged, not to well-adjusted dogs.

"Dog chocolates" are usually slightly chocolate-flavored treats with the
theobromine removed from the chocolate before a small amount of flavoring
is added to the commercial treat, or it is actually made of chocolate-like
St John's Bread. Theobromine is not toxic to humans, is rarely if ever
toxic to cats or other mammals -- it's a peculiarity of canines to have
fatal toxic response to theobromine. Other mammals may at most experience
lower fertility rates (in males), or the theobromine may act like
benzodrine (speed), including on the human body, but it will not otherwise
effect health of mammals other than canines.

It is irresponsible to feed a dog even Hershey's milk chocolate though it
is very low in theobromine & so not apt to result in sickness. A very tiny
toy -sizeddog that snarfed down a whole milk-chocolate bar might start
vomiting, but a large dog probably wouldn't respond to the dose at all.
That's no reason to feed them poison though, & you should stop giving them
chocolates other than those manufactured for dogs with theobromine absent.
But if you think the low risk of Hersheys milk chocolate means chocolate
per se is not toxic to dogs, go ahead & make your pups a chocolate pie or
some fudge or fudge brownies, using real bakers' chocolate. ONE OUNCE of
baker's chocolate in whatever you feed them is enough to do them in, so a
couple pieces of lovely fudge could well be all it takes to before you
have the wonderful proof before your very own eyes that it causes
convulsions & death.

-pagaht the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/