So hide the chocolate covered raisins.

We all know chocolate is bad for dogs. And did you know onions are bad too? So when you let your dog clean up the dinner plate make sure you didn't cook with onions. And then there is gum with xanthan.

Also, grapes. And raisins. You may have heard that too. Just so you know how seriously pet professionals take it, here's a little story.

Our new dog, Leo, a seven month old golden doodle, was table surfing on Sunday and got into some grapes that were left out. We figure he ate about a half dozen. My wife, the veterinarian, immediately fed him milk laced with hydrogen peroxide to make him vomit. After several minutes of waiting we decided it wasn't going to work so she took him to the clinic to give him an injection to make him vomit.

Within two minutes he started heaving up all the grapes, plus what remained of his breakfast and anything else he'd gotten into that morning. Poor little guy. The bad part was that he had obedience class later that day and was a little out of sorts for it.  The good part is, after careful inspection, all the grapes were accounted for. (Inspection isn't as fun as it sounds).

The lesson here is that any grapes are bad. Even one. We don't know what element of grapes is the problem, but the result can be acute kidney failure.* And it's not dosage dependent. It's not like a big dog can eat one grape and be fine. It's more like a roll of the dice, where some dogs have a problem and some don't, like some people can die from a bee sting and some don't. And there's no way of telling.

* this link is to an article that requires registration to read. It's free and you can opt out of unwanted emails

Many years ago, before we knew about grapes, which have only been implicated for a few years, we fed our doberman grapes all the time. In fact any grape that has a bruise or blemish was called a Katie grape and fed to her. She never had a problem. And if she'd developed kidney failure at some point we'd have had no clue it was due to grapes.

One day well know what causes it, but that probably won't change the rule: No grapes for dogs. Or raisins, which are 4.5 times more concentrated. Save them for yourself.


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