Turbo was brought in for an emergency visit. His owner had just cooked an amazing zucchini brownie and when the owner stepped out for a few minutes. Turbo carefully made his way up to the counter to try some for himself. While rarely fatal, chocolate ingestion can result in significant illness.

 

Chocolate is toxic because it contains a chemical called theobromine, as well as caffeine. Theobromine is the predominant toxin in chocolate and is very similar to caffeine. Both chemicals are also used medicinally as a diuretic, heart stimulant, blood vessel dilator, and a smooth muscle relaxant.

 

Dogs cannot metabolize theobromine and caffeine as well as people can. This makes them more sensitive to the chemicals’ effects. The darker and more bitter the chocolate, the more dangerous it is to dogs. Baking chocolate and gourmet dark chocolate are highly concentrated, while white chocolate barely poses any threat.

Clinical signs depend on the amount and type of chocolate eaten. For many dogs, the most common clinical signs are vomiting and diarrhoea, increased thirst, panting or restlessness, excessive urination, and a racing heart rate. In severe cases, muscle tremors, seizures, and heart failure can be seen. In older pets that eat a large amount of high quality dark or baking chocolate, sudden death from cardiac arrest may occur, especially in dogs with pre-existing heart disease. Complications (such as developing aspiration pneumonia from vomiting) can make the prognosis for chocolate poisoning worse. Clinical signs of chocolate poisoning can take several hours to develop, and can last for day.

Turbos owner called us nice and early so we could administer an injection to induce vomiting. This is an important treatment in early stage ingestion as it removes all the chocolate zucchini brownie from his stomach before it has a chance to take effect. Though this is very uncomfortable for poor Turbo there is no antidote for chocolate poisoning. After all the zucchini brownie was vomited up safely (see photo) Turbo was ready to go home. Turbo had one more injection before hopping in the car, an anti-emetic (Anti-nausea) injection to help reduce the side effects.

 

Turbo and his owners are certainly in for a quiet afternoon after their trip to the vets.

 

UPDATE: Turbo has returned to his normal self