Hide the chocolate?

Valentine’s Day is coming up! I know it’s a controversial holiday, a Hallmark holiday (…exactly like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day…), but I love it. It’s a holiday about love, and I’ve never thought it needed to be a holiday about romantic love.

We give cards and roses and romantic dinners on Valentine’s Day. And chocolate! Don’t forget the chocolate. Fido won’t.

Before you panic and clear out the top shelf to keep Fifi from getting to it, or panic because Fido already got to it, here’s something you should know:

Chocolate isn’t all that dangerous.

I know. I know, right? We’ve all been told all these years, “Don’t give the dog chocolate!” But while a chocolate pip or super pure darkest of the dark chocolate unsweetened cocoa might be bad, most of the chocolates we eat don’t have enough chocolate in them to hurt your dog.

The thing most likely to hurt your dog is all the sugar, and unless you have a diabetic dog, you might be cleaning up vomit from an upset stomach, but that’s about it.

But don’t take my word for it! You should never take the word of a non-expert in something this important. So instead let’s ask McGill University.

For a handy reference, you can either ask Siri to convert Kg to pounds, or you can do it yourself know that 1 kg = .45 lbs, or basically half a pound until you get way up into heavy weights. So my 81lbs (approximately 42kg) dog, Scout, can eat a pound of milk chocolate and there might be some puking, but he’ll be fine.

On the other hand, if your dog eats a bunch of chocolate and you’re not sure how they’ll tolerate it? Take ’em to the vet. That’s always the safe thing to do.

Story time! When I was a kid, we got home once after some holiday where there had been chocolate involved to discover our 6 lbs chihuahua had eaten TWO POUNDS of milk chocolate. There was a call to poison control. Then a lot of puke. And some diarrhea. Tiriki wasn’t a very happy girl for a day, but she was fine.

Jenna
Who is not a vet, so always double check with your experts whenever you read something by someone who isn’t an expert in that exact field.

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