[K9companions]

I have a crate for Hunter at my apartment for school, but when I bring him home on the weekends, I can only keep him in the house when we are gone and hide the food.

So when we went out to dinner, that's what I did, and thought everything was fool proof. Turns out I was the fool, lol.

We come home and Hunter had eaten half a box of mini wheats, some cocoa powder, gingerbread, and half a loaf of pumpanickel(sp?) bread.

He has seperation anxiety and he knew he was guilty. As soon as we come home he usually greets us right away, but this time he wasn't there and I found him sitting at the top of the stairs looking at me. I called him and he came down, but I heard my dad say, "Oh no" and Hunter shot back up the stairs to sit and look at me. Lol. He was too cute it was hard to get mad.

But anyhow, that was on Sunday. Well last night he had really bad diarhea (first on the rug, then on his blanket) and was throwing up his food, then later on just throwing up stomach bile.

I took him to the vet and there doesn't seem to be a blockage, but the vet said it might be a type of worm that causes this, which is ironic because Hunter has been wiping his butt and licking a lot before he got sick, and me and my mother were talking about worms.

So now I have to wait until his stools harden and bring in a sample, and he is on meds. I'm just worried....=/ I was hoping it was just the food, but now I'm worried about worms, which I hope will be easily treated.

And I had him checked only two months ago for worms....but you never know what dogs can get....

Anyhow, I'm just worried and sad for my poor sick boy...

 

[cshellenberger]

Oh No!!! How much Cocoa powder did he get? That's the worst thing he got into from what I can see, Cocoa powder is one of the most concentrated forms of Cocoa and we all know how toxic that is for dogs.

Hope he recovers soon, I think I'd invest in a crate or baby gates for the parents house to prevent further incidents.

 

[Kathyy]

http://http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/pets/chocolate-chart-interactive

Here is a chocolate chart. Cocoa is very scary. Sassy got into it once too but didn't eat too much. 3 pounds of milk chocolate the first week we had her though. She threw up most of it, the vet got the rest and she was a hyper mess for several days. And that chocolate was in and out in less than an hour. If he isn't hyper now he probably didn't eat enough to cause real trouble.

Now she is kept in the back of the house when we are gone. Close the bathroom doors too! Maybe you could find a crate at a thrift store or something for when you are home with her? I used rubber bands to keep her out of the lower cupboards but she could get anything from the sink or countertop. We put a lot of stuff in the oven, she never figured out how to get in there. That is a lot of extra work for your family. Can she simply stay in your room when everybody is out?

 

[K9companions]

Yeah, I was really scared about the cocoa powder! I watched him the whole day but he seemed fine, like nothing had happened. But then the next night he started having the runs and throwing up so I was very worried.

My mother recently had to change jobs due to low income, but she used to be a child care provider, so there was already gates up. Well, when she switched jobs my father took the gates down, and I had totally forgotten, so all we could do was leave him out with all the bedroom doors closed, and what we thought, all the food hidden or pushed back far enough that he couldn't get to it.

Yeah, I'm going to ask my parents if they could help me invest in a small crate or some gates to contain him until we get this whole seperation anxiety solved, which will take awhile.

Also, the other half of the problem to the seperation anxiety, is also that, as dogs do, he gets bored and looks for stuff to do. But the problem is, is that he won't chew on anything. If I leave pig ears out or bones, or his toys, he won't occupy himself by chewing. He doesn't chew when im here either unless I hold the pig ear until he starts, then let him finish. So while we are gone, not only does he have nothing to do, but he is also too concentrated on wondering where I am anyhow. So then he goes into 'find food' mode.

He seems to be doing much better today with his pills. I gave him a little bit of food about an hour ago and I'm going to see how well he holds it down, which will depend if I feed him a full dinner tonight.