Last night my wife's beloved Black Lab got into a pack of gum that was in her purse. Because of an incident with the same dog and a two pound bag of chocolate a few years back my wife started researching it on the internet, ended up inducing vomiting and calling our vet. Turns out that the artificial sweetener xylitol is highly toxic to dogs. The vet met us at 10pm at her office, did bloodwork and started an IV. They kept her last night and will give another round of IV's today to flush her system. Basically, inducing vomiting got it out of her system in time to prevent any damage and likely saved her life. I am picking her up after work today. She (the dog) is 17 years old and it was the first night she has slept somewhere other than on my wife's side of the bed.
I wouldn't have even thought about gum being dangerous to dogs, makes you wonder how safe it is for us...I just wanted to let you guys know, might save somebody a bad experience, and a lot of money.
Glad all is well at the Riggs house. Thanks for the warning.
Good to know, thanks!
Thank you for posting this Riggs. Our dogs are our world....
i do not eat any artificial sweeteners. every fat person i know eats artificial sweeteners. most of them are poisonous to humans as well as animals.
it is strange that some foods we eat are harmful to animals.
Glad all is well with your dog.
Dogs and chocolate do not mix, even if it does not have xylitol in it.
My grandmother, God rest her soul, was a bit senile but loved two things in life.....food and the family dog. Never would granny raid the kitchen without making sure her four legged buddy got a taste of the heist. On one such occasion, about 30 years ago, she came upon a freshly made chocolate pudding pie and between her and the dog, the pie soon vanished from the refrigerator. When questioned by my mother what happened to the pie, she emphatically denied having any knowledge about the pies whereabouts but the chocolate stains on her house coat and severe case of the Hershey Squirts the poor dog had all over the house told a different story. That poor dog had the runs for about 8 hours.
The other night my father got his dog sick by sharing chocolate covered peanuts with him. I sent him this link.
http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/ss/slideshow-foods-your-dog-should-never-eat There is a lot of people food that you should not give to your dog.
Den that's a great link. I never knew some of those things were harmful.
Thanks for the warning Riggs. Glad your dog is ok.
John
Glad to hear the dog is ok, my wife and I "dogsat" for my sister in laws 2 dogs a few years ago, one of them was on meds for arthritis, made it through the weekend just fine and we were taking them back when we decided to stop and grab a bite to eat. Wouldn't you know it one of them found the pills in the van while we were eating, chewed through the container and they ate them all, it was a VERY large vet bill but both dogs are still happy as ever.
Great link Den. I saw a few things we let our girls have that we shouldn't. I forwarded it to my wife.
We have 2 dogs that don't get "people' food at all. We have one dog that is real good at the table. The other one we just about have to put it in another room and close the door when we eat. She is a pest. Boo-Boo is so good that my wife had him on her lap in the car and for some reason she did not want to bother him to put him in back of the car. He laid right there and she ate her sandwich without a word to him. Her dog would not do that. You would be eating one end and her dog would be eating the other end. Both we had as a puppy,and both trained the same.
When I was a kid we had a collie that loved chocolate and cheese. He wouldn't leave us alone until he got his share. Much later we learned those are two of the worst things we could have given him. He lived to 14 so it could not have been all bad.