Mumsnet Talk

Just back, without Jas Had to leave him there while they made him vomit, put him on a drip and cleaned him out with charcoal. He is having blood tests as I type. OOH local vet was out of the necessary emetic, so we had to travel 46 effing miles to the next one. By the time we got there, an hour and a half had passed since he ate the chocolate. Vet was concerned he might have absorbed too much to be safe. Just rung as soon as we got through the door and have been told he has vomited a lot, which is good, and they're waiting on his blood results. DH is fretting that the insurance won't cover it, I'm just hoping he pulls through.

We had the same thing with our lab but it was florentines. They were quite scaremongery about raisins and said one could kill a Great Dane but our lovely dog was fine. They kept her in for 2 nights on a drip after the vomiting. They also told us that chocolate isn't as bad as raisins so fingers crossed for you. Our insurance covered it too.

I bloody hope our insurance covers it. Estimated bill is between £600-700.

Fingers crossed for you ,when can you get an update ? Why would the insurance be an issue?

Fingers crossed for you, Chickens.x

Dogs are greedy stupid bastards aren't they?

hope he's ok

I don't know really, we've just never had to claim. I'm going to ring for blood results at 11.15. The house feels so quiet without him.

What gets me is, DS(9) had snuck a whole pack of toblerones upstairs. White chocolate, milk chocolate...and one dark chocolate. So of course he ate the highly toxic one. Wrapper and all.

One raisin could kill a Great Dane?!

That strikes me as, um, unlikely. Is it true? I swear raisins breed in this house, Legs Dog must've snaffled dozens of them over the past year, only one at a time though!

I hope jas is okay.

Out of the emetic? That's a bloody poor show, particularly at this time of year.

Poor Jas

TLW - some dogs are more susceptible to food toxicity than others.

Insurance should cover it. As a one-off it shouldn't cause the insurance company to dispute it. Excess applied though, as with everything. Depends on the arrangement you have with the vet as to whether they claim it direct or you pay then claim back.

They insisted on payment up front. Well, we've paid a 50% deposit.

Hmmm out of the emetic. I keep enough at any one time to vomit in excess of 100 dogs.

You'll have to claim it back from the insurers, most likely, but I don't think you'll have a problem getting it back.

I am crossing all crossables for you.

Beat is that down to breed or individual dogs? I always thought it was bodyweight related, hence my surprise?

Hope J is ok and insurance pays up, ours did when Legs Dog ate an entire giant tennis ball and had emetic (how...??).

For Jas, not the claim, obvs!

I thought it was odd, lonecat, but tbh I wasn't in a position to query it. Now DH is ranting about lots of Vets Now stuff he's read on the internet. Which is oh so helpful right now.

I'm not sure, TLW, I saw it this week on a Lab forum but only skimmed it tbh. My impression was that some dogs can eat them and some can't.

Aw no, hope J is alright!

Tell your DH to stop reading stuff on the Internet about vets now they are regulated by the vet practitioner bodies and are kept a closer eye on them since the discoveries your DH is reading about its YEARS OLD NEWS. Honestly you have done the right thing in taking her straight in. Hope shes ok and back home with you all really soon.

Fingers crossed Jaspers Ok. Please update!

Just spoke to vet nurse. He wouldn't eat the first charcoal meal, so they had to put a tube up his nose in to his stomach to get it in to him. He ate the second one. His heart rate is ok, his potassium was low, so they've upped that in his drip. He vomited a huge amount of chocolate and toblerone packaging, so the vet said it was absolutely vital that he was treated. If anyone's reading this and thinks that a dog eating chocolate isn't that big a deal, can I please just say that it can be? Depending on the type of chocolate and the weight of your dog, it can be very, very serious. I have to ring back in an hour to see how his kidney function is.

Oh lord. Hope he recovers quickly. This time of year is such a nightmare for those of us with greedy dogs. In the last couple of days I've had to shout at both my sons for leaving chocolate where the puppy could get it. They are 16 and 18 and should know better by now. Particularly as they were around when our old dog, a large Curly Coated Retriever, ate an entire tin of cocoa powder and vomiting had to be induced. Luckily for her we only live two minutes from the vets and they were able to see her immediately. The vomiting was spectacular!

Thinking about it, the same dog, with her partner in crime, a Curly/ Lab cross, once ate a 1.5kg bag of raisins. At the time I had no idea they were poisonous and thankfully they threw most of them up pretty quickly with no major ill effects.

Oh, what a worry. But so easily done, especially at this time of year when there's likely to be lots more chocolate around. it's good that he's vomited. I'm sure he will be fine and i can't think why your insurance wouldn't cover it...I'm sure ours did when BastardDog found a box of chocs in a hedge and I had no way of knowing how many he had eaten so be treated like he had ingested enough do as to be dangerous. In our favour, BastardDog is a tank do it would take a lot of chocolate to do real damage.

This info was given to me by a vet nurse friend:

The list is the amounts of the various products a 10kg dog would need to ingest to require treatment. Obviously the quantities would extrapolate up or down for different sized dogs.

White chocolate:         22 kg (!!)
Drinking choc powder:  400g
Milk chocolate:           90-134g
Plain/dark chocolate:   2.5-45g
Cocoa powder:           8-38g
Cocoa beans:             5-18g
Cocoa shell mulch:      7-15g

The treatment threshold is 20mg theobromine per kilogram bodyweight.