There's all this fuss over feeding dogs chocolate and how it can be harmful and even fatal.
I had never heard of this growing up and we never had a problem all the years we had dogs, but looking back I cannot remember a time any of our dogs would've eaten chocolate (we were much too concerned with consuming it ourselves than to let our dogs get a hold of it!).
Is it true that chocolate can be harmful for dogs, and if so, why?
Is it harmful for puppies, or are they different?
The short answer is "yes, it could kill your dog".
According to WebMD (one of many, many references), the problem is that theobromine, a compound in cocoa beans that's similar to caffeine, is something dogs don't metabolize terribly well, so it affects them much more for their body weight than it would a human.
That means that the darker the chocolate, the more dangerous it is. It also means that a smaller dog (or a puppy) would be much more severely affected than a big adult dog - which is just as well, considering the box of chocolates my parents Old English Sheepdog ate once! (That was the last time Christmas gifts of food items went under the tree)
