Ah, love is in the air! Valentine's Day is upon us and as you indulge in the sweet chocolatey treats from a loved one don't forget that these human treats can be especially toxic to your furry companions. Dr. Michele Drake discusses the dangers of your pets ingesting human sweets and how to keep them safe in our latest video.

If your pet accidently eats something they shouldn't have, please contact us immediately here.

Featured Quote:

Dogs love chocolate. It used to be that really the chances of having a toxicity were fairly low with dogs. But the increase of dark chocolates over the last 10 years, we see a lot more potential toxicity.

Video Transcript:

Hi everybody. It's Dr. Michelle Drake, and we're getting really close to Valentine's Day. Hopefully everyone's going to have an opportunity to celebrate Valentine's Day a little bit. It's a fun holiday. Just some things to remember about with dogs and cats, but mostly dogs. With some of the things that dogs like to get into. Dogs love chocolate. It used to be that really the chances of having a toxicity were fairly low with dogs. But the increase of dark chocolates over the last 10 years, we see a lot more potential toxicity.

If your dog gets into any kind of chocolate, please call us. Or you can actually go online, and there's a chocolate calculator you can use. If they get into that range that it's going to be toxic, you need to get into your veterinarian right away so that they can induce vomiting and get that chocolate out of their system because it can cause some arrhythmias and discomfort. We just really don't want them to potentially have that toxicity.

Then the other thing we want to be concerned about is there's an artificial sweetener called xylitol, which is extremely toxic for dogs. We just want to make sure that if you are diabetic in your own home, or if you're not, or you just prefer the sugar-free chocolates to be very careful, always of knowing if the ingredient xylitol is in something which is in gums. It's in certain chocolates, other candies. We just want to make sure absolutely the dog does not get into it. If they do, you want to get into your veterinarian immediately, and then have them induce vomiting so that they don't absorb any of that xylitol. It's not good at all for dogs.

Anyway, we want to make sure you have a great Valentine's Day. Everyone celebrate that. I'm sure your pets can have fun with that also, but let's keep it safe.