What Foods Are Toxic To Dogs

there is a decent sized list of foods thatwe eat everyday that are really poisonous to dogs. today, i'm goingto be talking about the three that put more dogs into the hospitalthan any others. let's go! [music] >> meg: and now, the vet who listens whenyou tell him to get down off the couch!

What Foods Are Toxic To Dogs, >> meg: dr. andy roark! so what should we avoid feeding to dogs? >> meg: witches! >> stephen: very small rocks!

>> meg: a duck! >> stephen: a newt! please don't feed your dog any of those things!still, they are not the most common causes of disaster. let's look at the topthree you should avoid. chocolate! there is some confusion about thisbecause we've all seen dogs get into a little bit of chocolate, and then be totallyfine. how and why is chocolate so bad? chocolate has two ingredients that make itbad for dogs. caffeine, and theobromine. these compoundscan cause... >> stephen: but if you mix 'em with vodka,then you got a party.

so why do some dogs seem fine when they eatchocolate? well, some dogs are more sensitive than others, and not all chocolate is created equal, asmany of us may have learned when our boyfriends bought us gas station chocolatefor valentine's day. >> meg: that was told to you in confidence! different types of chocolates have differentamounts of these compounds. the general rule is, the darker the chocolate,the worse it is for dogs. semi-sweet chocolate is particularly bad,and baking chocolate is the worst. so what do we do if our dog eats chocolate?

>> stephen: reverse mouth-to-mouth! if it's been less than two hours, we can makethem vomit, and try to get as much back out as possible. beyond that, we're probablygoing to want to hospitalize them and provide supportive care and treat symptomsas they occur. xylitol is number two on our most common list,and most people don't have any idea what the heck this stuff is. xylitol is anatural, sugar-free sweetener that is in all kinds of products, and is growing in itsuse. some of the products you'll find it in include... like chris pratt, this stuff is everywhereright now.

here's some scary news. it doesn't take muchof this stuff to do very, very bad things to dogs. for example, a 20lb dogthat eats one gram of xylitol will have life-threatening low bloodsugar 10-15 minuteslater. after the low bloodsugar part, if the dosesare higher, we'll get death of the liver and liver failure. this stuff is terrifying. like that movietremors. here are the signs of xylitol poisioning... they're also the signs you might have accidentallyadopted keith richards. if you're seeing these signs, you might bealmost out of time.

don't mess around with anything at home. getto the vet right away. who knows what condition grapes, and theirdried relatives, cause in dogs? >> meg: acute kidney failure. >> stephen: there's nothing cute about it. seriously, pet kidneys can be severely andpermanently damaged by grapes and raisins, and we don't know why. >> stephen: it does no good to whiiiine aboutit. get it, wine? hahaha... we have figured out that toxicity doesn'tseem to be associated with the type of grape, whether it was organicor not,

whether it was sprayed with pesticides or not, whether it was home grown or from a farm,or any of these sorts of things. as best we can tell, the toxicity comes fromsomething inside the grape itself. >> meg: why is a grape so angry? is it a grapeof wrath? that's it. no more puns. >> stephen: ahhh...you'll be vine. ooooh...no more puns! we also don't know how much needs to be eatento cause a problem. we think that raisins are more toxic thangrapes, but everything really seems

to be widely different between individualpets. >> meg: so it varies grapely? signs of grape or raisin poisioning are reallynon-specific. often, the first sign that pet owners see is vomit with pieces of grapesor raisins in it. signs of severe kidney disease don't showup until one to even three days after grapes or raisins were eaten. and by thatpoint, the damage is already done. this is the worst part of the poison. theworst part of the band poison was bret michaels. this lag time unfortunately leads to a lotof people regretting not doing more back when they had the chance.

just like with chocolate, if we can make the dog vomit in the first two hours, we might be able to do some real good. beyondthat, it's supportive care in the vet clinic to keep those kidneys as healthy and happyas possible. >> meg: yeah, those vet clinics are reallyraisin the standard of care. get out. thank you for watching! as always, pleasehelp me to help pets, by subscribing to this channel, and sharingthe word about the cone of shame. if you have topics you'd like to see me cover,i'd love to help you out! just leave them in the comments section andi'll do my best. and until next time,

let's be the people our pets deserve.