When Dogs and Chocolate Collide!

Meet Anori. This 11-year-old, smallish breed dog consumed an entire bag of Glosette Raisins. The bag was accidentally left down low and while unsupervised, Anori thought she had won the lottery and happily ate the tasty treat. Two and a half hours later, her Mom came home to chocolatey vomit!

We all know that chocolate can be toxic to dogs, and some dogs can have an additional sensitivity to grapes and raisins as well. Knowing this, her Mom brought her in for treatment immediately.

Because it had only been 2.5 hours since ingestion, there was a chance some may still be in her stomach. We induced more vomiting and she was able to get a large amount of the chocolate/raisin mixture out. Hooray!

We decided also to run bloodwork so we had a starting point. We wanted to know what her organ function was prior to the toxins affecting them. Everything was normal. We administered activated charcoal orally (she happily ate it mixed into canned food because she will literally eat anything, obviously) to help stop the absorption of the toxins.

She was then placed on intravenous fluids for 48 hours. We wanted to provide support to her kidneys by diuresing her.

After two days we rechecked her bloodwork and everything remained normal. Anori was in the clear! Everyone was relieved!

We understand that accidents happen and are happy to help when they do. With so many chocolatey filled holidays throughout the year, we hope this serves as a reminder to ensure you have a plan to keep your pets from getting any chocolate or candy.

Written by Monique Ruppel