Chocolate is an essential part of anyone's Halloween routine. Kids dress up and work for it, adults buy the clearance bag for themselves the next day, and dogs will go for any leftovers.
As many of us know, chocolate is not good for your furry friends. Luckily, cats are usually too picky about what they eat to ingest a harmful amount, if any at all. Yet dogs will get there paws on any chocolate they can reach.
Why is chocolate so harmful for pets but so delicious for us?
Chocolate comes from the seeds of the cacao tree. Inside the sides a compound called Theobromine can be found. It is a bitter alkaloid or natural compound found in the cacao seed. Its close relative is Caffeine, another compound we are quite familiar with. We harvest the compound from seeds and process it with other ingredients to make chocolate. It can be found in various concentrations depending on the chocolate. Dry cocoa powder contains the highest concentration of Theobromine at 28.5 mg/g, next is unsweetened (baker’s) chocolate at 16 mg/g, semisweet chocolate and sweet dark chocolate is 5.4–5.7 mg/g, and milk chocolate is 2.3 mg/g.
And although this compound is natural, our pets digestive systems are different and process it slower than we do, therefore toxicity is a risk.
Hopefully your pet will never have access to any chocolate in any form, but accidents happen and with the abundance we have of it on holidays such as Halloween, what do you do if they end up unintentionally ingesting some? Again, depending on what kind and how much, you will notice some symptoms. Small doses can result in vomiting, diarrhea, hyperactivity, and panting. If your pet ingested enough you may begin to see tremors, seizures, elevated heart rate, and possibly death. If you suspect your pet has ingested a significant amount of chocolate, call you local veterinarian or emergency vet. They will need to be treated. Luckily some veterinarians have invented a handy chocolate toxicity calculator:
http://veterinaryclinic.com/chocolate/calc.html
This calculator should not be used in substitute for a veterinarian diagnosis. It is merely a tool to help you give more detailed information to your veterinarian in case of an emergency.
Another fun part of Halloween are costumes!
However, you should be aware that costumes on humans can make pets uncomfortable. They may act scared or skittish. For them, all of a sudden their "people" they are used to don't look normal and they can act out of the ordinary; including bolting towards the door, acting aggressive, or inappropriately going to bathroom in house.
I had this realization when I was part of Guiding Eyes for the Blind. An important part of my training with puppy "Jester" was to expose him to as many different situations as possible. There were puppy classes where I would wear a mask and lead him, or other people with costumes on to see how he would react. Even for his IFT (in for training) test, they had a person wearing a complete Ghillie suit to see how he would react.
Overall, putting on your costume in front of your pets, wearing them around the house, and doing normal chores may help them get accustomed and ready for Halloween night.
Have a safe and spooky Howl-o-ween!
More pet Halloween tips can be found at:
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