In the United States, chocolate is one of the five most common poisonings in dogs, along with car antifreeze, marijuana, rat poison, and pesticides.

The secret to chocolate’s addictive appeal lies in the theobromine it contains. Theobromine can excite the central nervous system, relax muscles, and increase heart rate. No wonder eating chocolate can make people feel like love is coming. Theobromine also has two famous brothers that belong to the methylxanthine family: caffeine and theophylline.

Just by seeing these names, you may suddenly realize that cocoa, coffee, and tea can become the three major beverages. It turns out that they have common characteristics. If you taste it carefully, whether it is coffee, cocoa, tea or cola, there is a hint of bitterness. This is also due to methylxanthines, and their pure products are very bitter.

These substances are toxic to most animals, but this trick does not work on primates like humans. We have a high metabolic rate for such substances, which means that these toxins in the body will be quickly excreted through liver detoxification and kidney excretion.

Unfortunately, dogs are not primates and cannot effectively excrete methylxanthines from the body. It takes about 20 hours to flush out half of the methylxanthines taken into the body.

For a Pomeranian weighing 3 kg, eating 3-4 grams of dark chocolate at one time may cause poisoning, which is just a small bite; eating 10 grams of dark chocolate at one time may cause severe vomiting and cramps; Eating 60 grams of dark chocolate can kill it due to tachycardia and muscle stiffness, and that's just the weight of a slab of chocolate.

For a dog who doesn't know when he's hungry or full, it's obviously not too difficult to swallow a plate of chocolate. The famous Merck Veterinary Manual recommends that dogs that eat more than 1.3 grams of dark chocolate per kilogram of body weight in one sitting should be sent to an animal hospital for treatment.