The Candy Man...or Dog

My dog likes candy. Particularly, he likes the shiny wrappers... or so he would have you think. Last night he took this love to a new level. I turned my back (actually went to brush my teeth) for 2 minutes and he decided to further investigate what was inside these shiny wrappers. I had 2 Hershey's kisses on a high end table. The table was definitely taller than Duke could reach. However, it is next to a chair and couch that he apparently used as climbing devices to reach these kisses he wanted.

All of that had happened without my knowledge, so after brushing my teeth I called him into the bedroom for the night. I reached down to pet him and noticed a morsel of something in his hair by his snout... oh wait, a CHOCOLATE morsel!

A million things ran though my mind, the loudest being "Isn't chocolate toxic to dogs?" So I go to investigate further and find the shiny remnants of both Hershey's kisses on the carpet. Crap. Now I google it. I discover that it is much more complicated than just all chocolate is bad for dogs. It varies depending if it is white chocolate or milk chocolate or baker's chocolate. Technically, it breaks down into the milligrams of theobromine and caffeine ingested whether it's okay or poisonous or lethal. Ultimately with Duke eating milk chocolate, he would need to eat about 15 ounces to have any symptoms. That's a couple of candy bars, so I was pretty sure he was in the clear. Just to be safe, I rolled the carpet up in case of any "accidents". Thankfully, other than some whining at 4am (probably due to a stomachache), we made it through the night just fine. We will also be keeping all candy on top of the fridge again; he definitely can't get it there.