Choco-barker-ama

Last weekend the Nerdpod made a quick trip to my hometown - Grand Forks, North Dakota. Each trip is not complete without a trip to the original Widman's candy store. This link it to the spin off store in Fargo that only sells a fraction of the fantastic and out-of-this world candy combinations online -- but you can still get the world-famous Chippers. Chocolate-covered potato chips. Incredible stuff.

We came home with a stock of Widman's chocolates. A few ounces each of chocolate-covered orange sticks, peanut butter melts and cranberries, a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans and a 2-lb. box of Chippers. My mother thoughtfully packed them in a small styrofoam cooler to survive the car ride back to the cities.

Our poodle, Buddy the Nerd-hound, had a better nose than I gave him credit for.

Yesterday, I discovered the lid to the box askew and every chocolate that had been in an unsealed paper sack (orange sticks, peanut butter melts and cranberries) was missing. The Nerd-hound had enjoyed a chocolate feast.

Not only can chocolate in certain quantities be toxic to dogs. Not only had the pooch been on a diet ANYWAY. But my Widman's chocolates, which were supposed to last us for months of occasional one-chocolate treats, were GONE! OH, THE HUMANITY!

I called the Nerd-hound over to me and he knew at once he'd done wrong. But I wasn't as mad as I was worried. I quickly called our vet's after-hours number and got in touch with the emergency vets service. I learned a number of things... all of them good:

1. Milk chocolate, while still toxic, is far less toxic to dogs than dark chocolate.
2. Everything he ate was something coated in chocolate... not solid chocolate... so the concern was more about the extra sweets upsetting his tummy than poisoning.
3. His extra-poundage actually helped him out in this case. The heavier the dog, the more he'd have to ingest to be dangerous.
4. He didn't get into the coffee beans. It's the caffeine in the chocolate that's the real danger. If he'd torn into those, he might have been a goner.

The bad:

1. He can have vomiting and diarreah for up to 24 hours after his choco-feast.
2. He was up several times during the night with doggy tummy-ache and we were treated to unbelievable dog farts, but at least he didn't hork up anything on the carpet.

Normally, I don't think he would have paid the chocolates any attention. In all the time we've had him he has rarely tried to grab food off our plates, the table, the garbage -- but I think his diet has turned him back into the natural scavenger he is as a canine. I can't blame the pooch. I didn't punish him. I think the tummy ache was punishment enough. And I've learned that poodles can smell through a 2-inch thick styrofoam cooler.

All in all, Nerd-hound seems to have taken it in stride. This morning he was a little extra cuddly, but back to eating and drinking and having his morning coffee (that's what we call his outside time on the leash) like normal. It was a good reminder that sometimes, having a dog in the house is like having a toddler -- that pees outside.