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Sweet Poison?
by Ben J. Character, DVM
Published in "Just Labs".....A celebration of the Labrador Retriever.
Besides the sweet taste, the reason we like chocolate so much is because it contains stimulants. When taken in small doses, these stimulants make us feel very good! Like other chemical highs, even stimulants eventually wear off because they get metabolized and excreted from the body. But also like other chemicals, you can get too much of a good thing, and when it comes to our dogs and chocolate, the result can be much more than a bellyache.
The toxic agents found in chocolate are known as methylxanthine alkaloids (MA). While we readily metabolize the stimulants theobromine and caffeine (the MA's in chocolate), our Labs do not, and it is these two stimulants that are the cause of "chocolate toxicosis" in dogs.
But all chocolates are not made alike. Among the different types of chocolates, you will find varying levels of stimulants. Starting from the purest sources, such as the cacao bean itself, and moving down through baking chocolate and milk chocolate, the level of stimulants drop exponentially. This is good because it means that most of the chocolates that our dogs have exposure to, such as "table candies" like white chocolate or milk chocolate, contain lower levels.
The Technicals of Chocolate Toxicosis
To understand the "how" and "why" of chocolate toxicity, we'll have to get a little technical, but hang with me and I think it will all make sense. As I alluded to earlier, every chemical that we take in by eating, drinking, or other means is eventually removed from the body. There are various ways this happens, but in this case, these stimulants are converted, or metabolized, into different chemicals that can then be excreted from the body (you don't want to know how, though you can probably guess).
Chocolates tend to cause more of a problem for our Labs because our dogs do not metabolize them as easily as we do. Thus, our dog's systems are unable to handle high levels of these stimulants. This becomes a bigger problem because, although I've been known to "indulge" a bit on my share of chocolate, our dogs are more likely to gorge themselves to the point of obtaining a toxic dose.
The toxic dose of chocolate varies on the type and the size of the dog. The minimum lethal dose (LD) of caffeine and theobromine (the stimulants we're talking about) in dogs ranges from 100-200 mg/kg. The purer the chocolate, the less it takes to get to this toxic dose. For a 75-pound Lab, it could take as little as 7.5 ounces of baking chocolate to put them over the lethal dose. For the same-sized dog, it would take over 56 ounces (3.5 pounds) of milk chocolate to create a toxic problem.2
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