From: shari@modcomp.uucp (Shari Bernhard)
Subject: Re: What human foods should dogs not eat (besides chocolate)?
Organization: MODCOMP, an AEG company
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 19:09:10 GMT
Keywords: books don't tell you

In <1992Nov3.171637.23728@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> prm@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (paul.r.mount) writes:

>	The pound doesn't tell you, the vet doesn't tell you,
>the newsgroup doesn't tell you (unless you ask), dog books don't tell you,
>and one person had a tragedy (maybe more than one).

>	What else, besides chocolate, should dogs not be allowed to
>eat, that humans normally do eat?

>	And, in the event that a dog is found to be eating something
>forbidden, is it better to induce vomiting (how?) or just call vet
>for emergency action?

My dog got into a whole bag of Magic Middles cookies (chocolate fudge
filled; I shouldn't have been eating them either!) and ate almost the
whole thing.  This happened when I was out to dinner.  When I came home,
she was lying in the middle of the living room, panting and whimpering.
The apartment was trashed.  I found my asthma inhaler on the floor with
a tooth puncture in it.  That's what I thought was the problem; it can
be really lethal stuff if you overdose.  I brought her to the pet
emergency center with the empty inhaler, and they set her up with a
shunt just in case they needed to administer an antidote (the same one
used when a dog bites a poisonous bufo toad).

It was expected that the albuterol from the inhaler would be out of her
system within 4 hours, but she remained with a dangerously high-blood
pressure and accelerated heart rate for 18 hours!  The vet was stumped.
I never mentioned the cookies because I didn't know about the dangers
of chocolate (the theobromine in it) to dogs.  I lucked out.  Raven,
who is no lightweight being a 75 lb Lab/Shepherd, recovered finally.
One of my co-workers was not so lucky.  Even after I found out about
chocolate, I never connected the cookies with the reason Raven didn't
recover as fast as expected until my co-worker's dog died after eating
some cocoa out of the tin.  He didn't know about chocolate either.

It turns out that theobromine (he did a lot of research on this afterwards)
stays in the system between 14 and 20 hours.  What happens is it gets back
into the bloodstream through the stomach lining.  It takes a long time
for the body to filter it out.  There are some methods to lessen its
effect, making the dog drink a lot and pee a lot, thus not letting it
stay in the stomach long enough to seep back into the bloodstream, and
others which I can't recall, but time and calm will work in some
situations.  What actually happened to Lady was, she got into the cocoa
in the morning, and when caught, was put in the garage where she just
lounged around all day.  That evening when someone came to visit, she
was let out of the garage and got all excited, jumped up and down a
few times, and had a heart attack and died right there.  She was a 
two-year old Golden mix.

As far as making a dog vomit, ALWAYS check with your vet first, but when
Raven swallowed a rubber ball, my vet had me give her a tablespoon of
peroxide.  It irritates the stomach lining and makes the dog throw up.
Which is what she did.  Up came the ball.  This worked on my dog in
that situation, but if a chemical substance is ingested, vomiting can
sometimes cause worse effects.  Same applies to humans.

I'm sorry this got so long, but chocolate poisoning is an important topic
and the dangers can't be stressed too much.  Moreover, it isn't just "the
sugar" that makes them hyper.  The blood pressure and heart rate elevation
can be so severe as to cause heart attack and stroke.

Shari (Raven's Mom) Bernhard