Most people who read my articles know that chocolate is toxic to dogs. Even though I mention it frequently in my articles, I still see chocolate toxicity several times a year. Candy bars with a shell of milk chocolate, such as Snickers, have less chocolate than solid bars. Dogs will often get sick from all the fat and sugar before the chocolate toxicity becomes serious.

    However, solid chocolate candy, especially dark chocolate, is very toxic. One dark chocolate candy bar can make a 10-pound dog very ill.

    Some dogs simply love the taste of chocolate. Who doesn’t? I had a Miniature Pinscher dog patient that had a serious chocolate craving. The dog’s owner is a very mellow tall man with a normally slow and soft way of talking. So, when he came running into my clinic holding his dog screaming, “He’s dying,” we didn’t know what to expect.

    The dog ingested an entire bowl of dark chocolate-covered espresso beans that was on a kitchen counter. How that little dog got up there is still a mystery. Upon presentation, his heart rate was more than 320 beats per minute. (A normal excited heart rate for him might be 150 beats per minute. 300 is what I would see in a small bird.) He could not stop trembling.

    We induced vomiting to empty his stomach and then administered activated charcoal to help absorb what was in his intestines. Valium, fluids and other medicines were given to help stabilize him. Because of his small size and the amount of chocolate and caffeine he ingested, his tremors worsened and he began to have seizures. His body temperature shot up to nearly 106 degrees in a matter of minutes.

    We ended up needing to anesthetize him for two full days with a constant rate drip of sedatives to keep him from having seizures until the com