Toxic Foods - Am I Going to Kill My Dog?

Everyone has heard that if someone feeds a dog X foods, the dog will keel over dead. But what about the dogs that mow down an entire Hershey's bar and are fine? Are these foods really that bad? I'll break it down for you in the next few posts!

Chocolate


The danger of chocolate, while of concern, is incredibly over-hyped. Chocolate contains theobromine and caffeine, both of which can be toxic in large concentrations. The level of theobromine needed for toxicity, however, is 300 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. [1] That means that a 70-pound lab (about 32 kg) would need to eat over 9,600 milligrams of pure theobromine, or 0.021 pounds. That might not seem like much, but a whole Hershey's milk chocolate bar contains only 62 milligrams of theobromine. [2] That dog would need to eat over 150 Hershey's bars to be at risk! So you can probably relax if Fido got into the Easter candy. You should be concerned, however, if your dog got into a batch of dark chocolate or baking chocolate. One tablespoon of Hershey's SPECIAL DARK Dark Cocoa contains 100 milligrams of theobromine, so that can become dangerous very quickly.[2] To make life easier, here is a ranking of how concerned you need to be if your dog stole your chocolate bar, from least scary to most scary:

White Chocolate < Milk Chocolate < Dark Chocolate <Baking Chocolate