Halo in her heart monitor vest and with her jingle bells. Our little reindeer.
Halo decided she wanted to be the star of her own Trupanion commercial…
Yesterday, Jenny came home to discover that Halo had jumped the baby gate and pulled down a bag of road trip snacks for the trek to Topeka this weekend. She had devoured 8 oz of super dark chocolate.
PSA — I know many of you are about to say your dog ate chocolate once and was fine. Us too. Schmav has an affinity for Thin Mints and Indy once ate a whole box of Swiss milk chocolate. Ironically, Fatty Karm is the only one now who hasn’t had a chocolate indulgence. The boys haven’t even had diarrhea after…you would never know they even ate it if they had figured out how to throw away the evidence.
So, we almost didn’t take it seriously. Jenny found two piles of chocolate vomit and thought, “maybe she took care of the problem herself.” But then she looked at her, like really looked. She seemed restless and the vein in her neck was pulsing so aggressively, she could see it moving from across the room. Vomiting and trembling were enough to make Jenny load her up and get her to our DVM.
They induced vomiting and even more chocolate came up. She was tachycardic. They called poison control and for the quality of the dark chocolate she ate, they sent us packing for supportive care and monitoring overnight.
At the Veterinary Referral Center of Colorado (VRCC) they put a jingle bell collar on her to monitor for seizures and a vest to monitor for a heart attack. Who knew that chocolate could cause seizures in dogs? Luckily, she never had one. She also got anti-nausea meds, and by 10pm they called to say she was out of the danger zone for a heart attack or seizure.
That face!! Such a little trouble maker! But so pretty 🙂 The picture on the right is a full view of the heart monitor vest — you can even see all the wires coming out of it!
This morning they called us to come pick up the “wild child” who was scarfing food, feeling good, and wanting to go for a run in the fresh air.
Crisis averted! Trust your instincts, put down the google, see a veterinarian. And for us — don’t be in such a hurry in the morning that you don’t scan your countertops one last time before heading out the door! (And yes, Trupanion covered 90% of our costs after our deduct! Love them!!)