Why You Shouldn’t Give Your Dog Chocolate for Halloween

Halloween is fast approaching, and you may feel tempted to share a piece of chocolate candy with your canine best friend. As a dog owner, you’ve probably heard that chocolate will make your dog sick, but it can be challenging to resist those big puppy eyes when it comes to saying “no” to chocolate.

Chocolate Can Cause Illness and Death in Dogs

Knowing how dangerous chocolate is for your canine buddy will hopefully help you resist the urge to give your dog chocolate.

Chocolate contains a molecule called theobromine. This ingredient, along with its partner caffeine, is one of the many reasons humans have loved chocolate for thousands of years.

Both theobromine and caffeine are dangerous for dogs, but chocolate contains a lot more theobromine than it does caffeine, so that’s the ingredient to be concerned about.

Effects of Theobromine on Humans and Dogs

Like caffeine, theobromine makes our heart pump faster, our blood vessels dilate, and some of our muscles get more energy, which sounds great! But too much of it can make the heart pump too quickly and muscles contract uncontrollably, eventually leading to nausea, convulsions, heart attack and even death.

Luckily for our taste buds, humans process theobromine pretty quickly, so that’s not something you need to worry about. It rarely sticks around long enough to cause any harm.

But our dogs aren’t so lucky. They process theobromine a lot more slowly, so it can easily build up and cause those dangerous effects. Dark chocolate is more dangerous for dogs because it contains less sugar than milk chocolate, making the concentration of theobromine higher.

Theobromine stays in dogs’ bodies much longer than humans’, giving it more time to concentrate and cause harm. In addition, most dogs are smaller and lighter than humans, so it doesn’t take much chocolate to make them sick.

A 30 lb. dog would only need to eat about 1.5 ounces of baking chocolate (10.5 ounces of milk chocolate) for it to be a lethal dose. By comparison, a human would need to eat half of their body weight in chocolate before they would get sick.

What To Do If Your Dog Eats Chocolate

If you think your dog has ingested chocolate, call your veterinarian right away! Your vet will want to know:

how much your dog weighs
what type of chocolate the dog ate.

Hopefully, your dog will vomit up chocolate without intervention. But if not, your vet may ask you to give your dog 1 tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide for every 20 lbs of your dog’s weight to induce vomiting. You can use a medicine dropper or turkey baster to give your dog the liquid.

Don’t Wait for Warning Signs

If you suspect your dog has eaten chocolate, don’t wait for symptoms to appear; it can take 6 -12 hours for your dog to show any signs of sickness.

Symptoms of Chocolate Poisoning

The symptoms of chocolate poisoning in dogs include:

hyperactivity
pacing
panting
extreme thirst
diarrhea
shaking
seizures

The effects of chocolate poisoning in dogs can last up to 72 hours. The faster you get your dog to vomit out the chocolate, the better chance the dog has to recover.

How Vets Treat Chocolate Poisoning in Dogs

Most vets will administer fluids and an IV with apomorphine to induce vomiting. They will pump the stomach to flush the poison out of your dog’s system and introduce activated charcoal to prevent the chocolate from entering the dog’s blood stream. Most dogs that receive treatment will survive the ordeal.

Where to Call for More Information

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has a 24-hour poison hotline. The number to call is 888-426-4435.

So when you’re scavenging through your kids’ Halloween treat bags, or sneaking some chocolate from your Halloween candy bowl, don’t ever give your dog chocolate, no matter how long your dog gives you those adorable puppy eyes.

Canine Campus Dog Daycare & Boarding is a safe, fun place for dogs to spend their day or stay overnight in comfortable “dorms.” We offer supervised playtime, snacks and lunch (approved by you, of course), dinner for overnighters, soothing music, and a state-of-the-art webcam system so you can view your pet from anywhere in the world! Grooming services are available as well.