Posted 2010-04-20 8:25 AM (#119058) Subject: WARNING Dog and Cat owners
Expert
Posts: 5870 Location: western PA
Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this to those who do. Over the weekend, the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch fromTarget to use in their garden. The dogs loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog (Calypso) decided the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk . Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's web site,
Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other Garden supply stores contains a lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells li ke chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.
Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline. A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.
Posted 2010-05-21 8:09 PM (#120440 - in reply to #119058) Subject: RE: WARNING Dog and Cat owners
Member
Posts: 6
Location: Ontario
15 years ago my golden retriever ate an entire one lb bag of chocolate chips (Hershey's too I believe). She threw up all over the place, and the chocolate stain was so hard to get out of the carpeting... I thought it was the one lb of margarine that was also on the counter awaiting a baking session.
She recovered well from that misadventure and went onto have many others until the ripe age of 15 a few years ago. I recall an entire roast chicken was missing as well one evening; it had been cooling after coming out of the oven.
Her name was Lady; can you guess her nickname around the house? ;)
Posted 2010-05-31 8:54 PM (#120775 - in reply to #119058) Subject: RE: WARNING Dog and Cat owners
Regular
Posts: 73
"Snopes" is a web site that verifies or discredits internet rumors that I like to use. It states that this story may be partly true, and first came out in 2007 about a lab in Minneapolis that died from eating cocoa mulch purchased from a local store. Home Depot said in 2006 that they only sell mulch that is not harmful to pets, and that the cocoa fats have been stripped from the mulch by a heat process. Here is the address for this topic: http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp
WARNING Dog and Cat owners
HOLY CRAP BATMAN...THANKS for the heads up............