Just whacked my dog - feel awful but I was so angry

[WTFwasthat]

He ate a third Easter Egg, from a shelf about 5 feet up. I was so fucking annoyed and frustrated that I pulled him into lounge by the collar and whacked his backside. Feel terrible but it is so fecking annoying. Will he forgive me

What did the vet say?

Even if there are no obvious immediate symptoms and even if it was milk chocolate he still really needs to see a vet.

The potential poisoning from chocolate isn't to his digestive system, it's to his neurological system and can cause fits and brain damage. Let us know how he gets on, hope he's ok.

Put the chocolate in the fridge, hoping he can't open the fridge door.

You hit your dog because he ate the easter eggs?

You dog will probably forgive you, poor little sod.

If you are not able to train/supervise/ disapline your dogs correctly, then perhaps you should re home him to someone who will not resort to violence when they get annoyed.

All I will add at this juncture, as a vet, a short-tempered mother and owner of two extremely food orientated, stealthy, thieving dogs, both of whom I've had to treat as a result of stealing inappropriate or toxic foods, is that this is NOT YOUR DOG'S FAULT. Dogs are animals, they live in the moment, they make decisions based on motivation to access resources on a minute by minute basis.

No dog, faced with access to a food they highly desire, has the capacity to make a decision to ignore that resource because to take it would anger you. You want a dog who doesn't steal food, you need to take away access to food. It's tedious and annoying but they are JUST DOGS! :)

Yes, physical punishment is what it required here. Take a newspaper, roll it up really tight and beat yourself about the head repeatedly for leaving chocolate within his reach and not supervising him carefully enough.

Theobromine toxicity is related to dog's weight and cocoa content of the chocolate. This is the rough guideline vets use (given to me by a friend who is a vet nurse):

This 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.

I don't give a shit if you don't routinely beat him, you whacked him?!?! And because you leave chocolate where he can get it

Wow, for a one-off event you're clearly quite uncomfortable with, you're getting a heck of a flaming.

We all know it's not acceptable to hit our dogs. The OP knows this; she's said she feels awful. It's happened, it shouldn't have happened, but it has happened; let's accept that and deal with the more important things here.

1 -If it was a one-off incident and you didn't immediately smother the dog with reassurance, your dog will most likely not make a big deal out of this incident. In packs dogs will snap at each other to put one another in their place. Just remember how awful you feel now and you won't do it again.

2 - Your dog has eaten chocolate. It's fairly likely everything will be ok, but to be on the safe side call the vet (if you haven't already done so), explain the situation and the dog's size, the amount of chocolate etc and figure out what to do.

3 - More long term here, but you need to address your dog's food thievery. Yes most dogs seem to be perpetually hungry, but this is something which can be managed with time and training. If you can work on commands like 'stay' and 'leave', prevent jumping up if that's a problem, get the dog into the habit of always eating from his bowl, and only hand feed rewards when he's done something to earn the reward then you might be able to combat this behaviour. It's not quick or easy, but it's very possible to have a dog and not live in fear that the snack you left on the coffee table will immediately be scoffed!

Until 50 years ago all dogs were trained by being whacked. They still adored their humans. Don't beat yourself up with that rolled up newspaper, he'll have forgotten by tomorrow.

portrait a lot of things happened up until 50 years ago that are not acceptable behaviour today.

OP - did you call the vet or just leave him and hope for the best?

frettchen by comparison to other threads like this OP has definitley not been flamed. i'm actually really surprised at how this thread has gone. they are usually alot angrier than this.

also. you missed out point no 4 from your post - keep food out of reach of a dog that you know will jump for it.

and no up til 50 years ago all dogs were not trained by being whacked. some people had brains even 50 years ago.

We having a thieving dog who tries to thwart all our best efforts to keep her from eating things that will kill her, so I do sympathise with the frustration.

All easter eggs are on top of our wardrobe in our bedroom and the DCs have to ask for them down. They are put back there once they've had enough. It's a hassle, but less hassle than chocolate poisoning. Even then, I caught thieving dog trying to jump from the windowsill to the wardrobe yesterday - so the bedroom door is now shut at all times. She can open doors but wouldn't try the bedroom unless we were out of the way!

She has recently learnt how to open kitchen cupboard doors and get the cereal packets out. We are going to have to put child locks on everything. There are huge notices all over our kitchen reminding the more forgetful members of the family to SHUT THE DOGS OUT!

Even then, I came home last week having been out only a short while to find she had got out of her crate (we really need a padlock as she has worked out how to open the latch), opened our bedroom door, found a plastic tub of vitamins and eaten the lot. Luckily (!) she had thrown them all up on our bed and a call to the vet reassured me no damage was done.

It's maddening having dogs this determined to steal! It's like a battle of wits with me and thieving dog - she's a very clever dog so if I lock things and put them high she just tries harder to work out how to circumvent the obstacles

I think you know not to hit them - they ever don't understand why - or you wouldn't have posted. FWIW, I'm sure your dog will still love you. Put that annoyance into properly proofing the place so it can't happen again. And get those easter eggs higher than 5 foot. My dog would laugh in the face of 5 foot

FGS, the OP made a mistake - she knows she shouldn't have hit the dog and feels awful about it and isn't likely to do it again. Why the need to have a go at her about it. Is that really the way to behave when someone admits to doing something wrong and is genuinely sorry for it.

OP, hope you have phoned the vet for advice re: the chocolate eating. I remember when I was growing up our Cavalier stole so much chocolate and was fine. That said, it is always worth getting advice from the vet. I did when my dog managed to steal half a bag of truffles out of my handbag (whilst at the same time leaving the empty packet inside the handbag and had me hunting high and low for the missing truffles wondering where they could have gone, only to eventually discover a couple of little tell tale black hairs in the empty packet which suddenly solved the riddle!)