A warning for dog owners
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive February 2007:
A warning for dog owners
LETHAL COCOA MULCH for your garden ...
Yesterday one of our dog agility friends experienced a tragedy and wanted me to pass a special message along to all of my dog loving friends and family.
Please tell all dog owners you know!
Over the weekend the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. They loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog Calypso, decided that the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk. Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the companies web site, this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs.
Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that "It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog).
However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it."
True information about the mulch can be found here -
www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoa.htm
This site gives the following information:
Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other garden supply stores, contains a lethal ingredient called "Theo bromine".
It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks. Just a word of caution ? Check what you are using in your gardens and be aware of what your gardeners are using in your gardens.
Theo bromine is the ingredient that is used to make all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate, which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline. A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao be an shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.
Please email the manufacturer at michellemessick@hersheys.com and request
That accurate information about this product be posted on the packaging to avoid further tragedy.
Bea, I am going to e-mail Hershey's, and sent your post to my son, who has lots of acquaintances in the veterinary medicine community. I am also going to contact Target and tell them they should stop selling this stuff until Hershey puts prominent safety warnings on it.
Wow. It seems like a product that common sense would dictate shouldn't even be availible.
Do notice that the snopes article is from 2003. So what is on the market this year, if at all, may be somewhat different.
I do have to say, it sounds great, I hate the poop smell! If I didn't have a dog I would have to consider it.
Does anyone know why chocolate is lethal to dogs but not humans?
The biggest reason is that dogs (and other animals) metabolize theobromine, the toxic element, at a much slower rate. It can cause cardiac infarct (heart attack) or major neurological, kidney, or other effects. Here's a link to the "how stuff works" section of About.com which has more links to answer specific questions:
>link1
and another that addresses veterinary medicine information: vet medicine
What it seems to boil down to is partly a factor of amount consumed - that is, the amount of chocolate the dog consumes and the level of theobromine in the chocolate. Dark chocolate has a higher percentage than milk chocolate, for example. Given that most dogs are generally gluttons and will easily overeat (from a human perspective), a dog can very quickly consume a toxic level of chocolate or other theobromine containing product where a human (generally) would not. It appears, however, that in large enough doses/quantities, theobromine can be bad for people too. We just generally wouldn't eat enough chocolate in one sitting, and metabolize (excrete) it much more quickly so it has less time to be harmful.
I double-checked with Scott, who is a veterinary technician and worked at the Vet School at the Univ. of PA for some time, and he concurs, adding that Theobromine is a potent stimulant, that's why it's a cardiac risk. You should also note that only primates can metabolize theobromine (and other methylxanthines, such as caffeine) in relatively huge amounts. (No coffee-flavored ice cream for your dog.)
|
Members
