Joey’s Pet of the Week – Russell’s Chocolate Toxicity

By Scott Lackenby | Dated May 11, 2016

Heya everyone! How are you all? How exiting about me becoming a funcle (fur uncle) again?!? In case you missed it, Nurse Hollie and her husband Mark welcomed a beautiful little girl, Rylee Sarah, on the 4th of May. She is absolutely beautiful and I love her already!

Have you voted for me in the Dermcare Clinic Cat of the Year competition? If you haven’t head over to the Dermcare website, www.dermcare.com.au and vote for me. There a lot of other amazing cats on there, but none as amazing as me!

In other staff news, still no postcard from Dr John. The only excuse I can think of is that he’s been in a terrible accident and has broken both of his hands. If he doesn’t come back with both hands in plaster, there’ll be trouble!! No postcard from Nurse Janie either, but she has sent through some amazing pictures, and while I can’t stick them on my postcard wall, at least she’s thinking of me. Vet Nurse/Vet Student Alex is my favourite person. She sent me a postcard from her placement in Cambodia. She may of beaten the postcard home, but at least she sent one.

My star this week is the cheeky Mr Russel, an almost 3year old Cavoodle from East Killara. Russell was brought in to see Dr Helen Burns after it was estimated he had eaten approximately 100gm of dark chocolate. Now, we all know that chocolate is bad for us furries. But did you know that the darker the chocolate the worse it is? Chocolate with a higher content of cocoa, like the one Russell had eaten, has a higher amount of caffein and theobromine, which is what makes chocolate so bad for us. The amount Russell had potentially eaten was getting close to a fatal dose. Russell was starting to sign clinical signs of mild chocolate toxicity at home, he was extra bouncy!

Dr Helen admitted Russell so we could give him some medication to induce vomiting so we could get as much of the chocolate out of his system as possible. Once he was given the medication, Russell vomited up a huge amount of chocolaty vomit! Once this was done, Dr Helen gave Russell some activated charcoal, which would help to stop any of the chocolate not vomited up from being absorbed into Russell’s system. Russell spent the day in with us for observation, but was sent home later that afternoon with strict instructions to keep out of his Mum’s chocolate!!

Chocolate ingestion is a potential emergency as eating the right quantity can be fatal. If your pet eats chocolate, call us for advice. Make sure you know the amount and type of chocolate that has been eaten, if there’s enough of the packaging left to tell you that!!