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 Do
you like to check out your mom and dad’s
garden? There might be a gecko or bird’s eggs
or something interesting (not a snake!) hiding
in there. And the smells when the dirt is wet –
just amazing!! Humans don’t know what they’re
missing – especially when we can roll in the
garden dirt and mulch.
Well, I heard my mom and dad talking about an
old ‘news flash’ from a couple of years ago.
They went out to various websites and checked it
out but so far nothing is showing up anymore.
The old ‘news flash’ is about a certain kind of
mulch for the garden. It’s called
Cocoa Mulch
and you could (and maybe still can) purchase it
to use in your garden. Here in the desert we
don’t use garden mulch that much but if you’re a
‘snow bird dog’, your parents may be using it
back in your summer home.
Now, for the bad news - we
dogs love the way the Cocoa Mulch smells (a good
thing) and it was advertised to keep cats away
(an even better thing). What could possibly be
the problem? It’s
HIGHLY toxic to dogs
and cats – causing death.
A few years ago, even the manufacturer stated
‘it is true that studies have shown that 50% of
the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer
physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending
on each individual dog). However 98% of all
dogs will not eat it’.
Well, come on now – cocoa – chocolate – dogs -
get the connection? We dogs
LOVE
chocolate but it doesn’t love us. The lethal
ingredient in Cocoa Mulch is something called ‘Theobromine’.
It smells like chocolate and it really attracts
us dogs. And of course, we’ll eat it
(especially since it smells like chocolate).
Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark
or baker’s chocolate which we all know is toxic
to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially
toxic quantities of theobromine, a compound
similar in effects to caffeine. A dog that
ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made
from cocoa bean shells developed severe
convulsions and died about 17 hrs later.
Stomach analysis revealed the presence of lethal
amounts of theobromine.
And interesting enough, there were
NO WARNINGS
on the bag – let’s hope they’re not
manufacturing it again WITH WARNING labels as
it’s just as lethal now as it was a few years
ago.
So, if you smell chocolate
in your garden, or in the bags sitting in your
garage that will end up in the garden, either
here or in your summer home,
PLEASE
don’t eat it. Just step away from the
‘chocolate smell’.
Get your humans to read this and keep sniffing!
Finnigan
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