Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Re: Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Alexander Campbell — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:58:20 GMT

[quote user="Laurence Webb"]

Alex - do the dark chocolate levels include some of the really strong 80% cocoa dark chocolate?

We had 2 dogs from different houses poisoned with some of that stuff in the same week after it was given away as a freebie stuck to the front cover of a magazine

[/quote]

Hi Laurence

We have deliberately taken the worst-case scenario in setting our intervention thresholds for our "Rough guide for chocolate".

Really high quality chocolate with >70% cocoa solids can contain up 16mg of theobromine per gram of product, though many dark chocolates contain about a quarter of this.

As we generally intervene for 20mg/kg of theobromine in dogs then roughly 1.25g per kg of a good quality dark chocolate could deliver that sort of "dose".

Hope this helps!
As for the magazines - I do wish some of these publications would think about pets when they do these sorts of promotions! It is similar to the company who dropped packets of xylitol sweetened chewing gum packs through the letter boxes of 50,000 houses about 2 years ago. Each pack could have delievred a toxic dose of xylitol to any dog weighing less that 14kg! Not their best moment....

Re: Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Laurence Webb — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:24:29 GMT

Alex - do the dark chocolate levels include some of the really strong 80% cocoa dark chocolate?

We had 2 dogs from different houses poisoned with some of that stuff in the same week after it was given away as a freebie stuck to the front cover of a magazine

Re: Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Mark Holmes — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:53:01 GMT

If that white chocolate came in the form of Toblerone I think I would have a stab at eating twice my own bodyweight........ there are worse ways to die!

Re: Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Bob Russell — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:37:56 GMT

Any dog that eats twice its own weight in white chocolate deserves to be very sick as does any owner that has that amount in the house!

Re: Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Alexander Campbell — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:43:36 GMT

Hi Andre

Based on averge theobromine content that is true - but obviously the milk and sugar components would probably make any dog who did decide to consume this quantity pretty sick!

I think my colleague wrote this to emphasise that white chocolate nothing to worry about from the theobromine perspective!

Cheers

Re: Toxic Times - the VPIS newsletter - winter edition

Andre Escudeiro-Vieites — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:43:34 GMT

The dose that requires treatment for White Chocolate is 2.2 Kg/Kg??