Saturday 20 December 2008

Chocolate Feast

This has been for some reason one of the worst seasons l have known for pets and chocolate. Possibly word is finally getting out or maybe people are just being more careless.

Last night we had 2 “chocolate” dogs in and kept both overnight on drips and treatment as a precaution. One ate chocolate several hours before, the other was more impressive.

He was 15kg in weight (about the size of a cocker spaniel) and the owner rung us up. The dog had eaten an 8pack of mars bars and a pack of breakaway biscuits.

I gave him a little injection in the neck with a rather nasty drug. Nasty because after you have eaten all that yummy chocolate, you are not going to keep it, no matter how hard you try, ahh the bliss of apamorphine.
I sat the owner and partner in a consult room with a load of incontinence sheets and said shove that under when he throws up.

I have to say l haven’t seen so much chocolate come out of a small dog before. The owner was muttering l don’t believe it he got the dairy milk as well, OMG he got the crème caramels, and look he got some quality street.

The vet decided that for safety sake we would keep it in. We did not know how much had been absorbed and the sheer volume had us all shocked as he was just a smallish dog. He had climbed on the counter top into the cupboard while the owners were out. Never done anything like this before, now they had to figure out how to stop future problems.

The photo shows most of the chocolate thrown up but a couple of the sheets of chocolate had been thrown away before l got the photo.

3 comments:

Auntie Jane said...

Don't people ever learn? My dogs don't jump on surfaces or steel food... But I would never go out and leave them with access to sweets (or food for that matter).

How many times do we have to tell people NOT to give their dogs chocolate or raisens, for that matter?

Hope both dogs are OK and their owners have learnt their lesson.

Anonymous said...

I've only recently discovered your blog via Stonehead's and I'm enjoying so far!

I'm always very careful when it comes to our chocolates and the dogs and keep them (the chocolates, that is) safely locked away in my belly where no naughty Labradors or JRTs can get to them... :)

Vetnurse said...

Hi Jo and welcome to the site. Just been having a read of your blog. I am envious.
Wish we were also able to do like you and Stoney but life just isn't so simple. The great thing about blogs is that you can at least read about things.
:-)

Jane both dogs went home as have all the rest that have been in, either as in patients or outpatients.
I swear it is a doggie choc feast this year.

I am really hoping l do not get called in as emergency cover on Christmas day through to several days after Boxing Day cause l can just see that it will be heaving (literally) with over fed dogs who are now facing the wrath of Christmas stomachs.

Last year one of the vet nurses lab got l think about 4 boxes (one each on different days) of Thorntons chocs.
She and dog were not popular with us as the dog has no manners or training and was a pratt. Twisting round (ties up drip line), barking and chewed a line out and pulled one out several times with his behaviour.