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Don't give your dog table scraps, especially from rich, fatty
meals.
These kinds of foods can give your dog gastroenteritis
or pancreatitis. Gastroenteritis is the medical term for
vomiting and diarrhea. Pancreatitis is especially dangerous. It
occurs when the dog is trying to digest a very fatty meal. The
pancreas produces enzymes to assist in the digestive process.
With pancreatitis, the pancreas produces far too much; it gets
inflamed and can even begin digesting itself. The symptoms
are vomiting and diarrhea, usually bloody. The dog will become
dehydrated and can die.
Don't give your dog leftover food bones.
Most bones are dangerous treats to give to dogs. Turkey, chicken,
pork, and beef rib or steak bones are the worst. These bones are
all easily chewed into sharp splinters that can lodge in the GI
tract and may cause esophageal or intestinal lacerations, partial
or complete obstructions, or even perforations with subsequent
life-threatening peritonitis.
One more word of warning: if your dog has swallowed any bones
that can spinter, do NOT induce vomiting, because they could cause
an esophageal laceration on the way out.
Don't feed your dog chocolate.
Actually dogs are allergic to the caffeine in chocolate, not to
the other ingredients. And it takes a certain amount of chocolate
before your dog gets sick. So if your Laborador Retriever grabs
a Hershey's Kiss, that is OK. But to be on the safe side, don't
give your dog any chocolate. And if your dog eats chocolate (particularly
if he or she is a little dog), contact your vet for advice.
Here are the amounts of caffeine that will cause problems for
dogs:
100 mg caffeine per
1 kilogram of dog's weight |
Symptoms will occur |
140 mg caffeine per
1 kilogram of dog's weight |
Toxic level |
| Milk chocolate has: |
45 mg of caffeine per ounce |
| Unsweetened chocolate has: |
400 mg of caffeine per ounce |
Note: 1 (kg) kilogram is approximately 2.2 pounds. Therefore if
your dog weighs 10 pounds, he or she is about 4.5 kilograms. The
toxic amount of caffeine for your dog is 630 mg (milligrams) (4.5
kg X 140 mg/kg = 630 mg). Therefore, approximately 1.5 ounces
of unsweetened chocolate will be a toxic amount for your
10 pound dog. It will take 14 ounces of milk chocolate to be a
toxic amount.
Avoid dairy products for dogs and cats.
Dairy products are not generally dangerous, unless they contain
a lot of fat (see discussion on pancreatitis), but they are usually
digested poorly by both dogs and cats, who have little or none
of the enzyme required to digest the lactose in milk. Just like
lactose-intolerant people, lactose-intolerant dogs can develop
excessive intestinal gas (flatulence) and may have foul-smelling
diarrhea. It is best to avoid most dairy products altogether,
although small amounts of cheese or plain yogurt are tolerated
by most dogs, since these products have less lactose than most.
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