Beware giving your pooch chocolate

Wayne of Wayne's World of Pets in Duke Street, Whitehaven, reveals why chocolate is bad news for dogs...

It's a dog's life

The cocoa that human chocolate is made of has in it a compound called Theo Bromine, this is the element that is toxic to a dog, it belongs to the same family of drugs as caffeine and has a similar effect. For your dog this is not the effect of helping him wake up in the morning, but more the effect of making his heart work much harder than it should, and if he eats too much he can suffer from cardiac arrest. What is too much is highly disputed and not a simple matter as the Theo Bromine has a half life in your dogs system of 17.5 hours, this means that every 17.5 hours the toxin will reduce by an half so there will always be some toxin left in his body (bit of a science lesson I know). So every little chocolate he has will be adding to this amount. The telltale signs that your dog has had more than his tolerance is vomiting and diarrhoea, rapid breathing, passing urine excessively and crying as the body tries to get rid of the toxin. A larger dog will have a greater tolerance to human chocolate than a smaller breed but to be safe please don’t feed human chocolate to your dog as you may be killing him with love.

In dog chocolate Carob is used instead of cocoa so the toxin is not present and therefore it is perfectly safe for your four-legged friend.

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