natural antibiotics

[2colegroves]

I had a small dog a few years ago I kept in my house, she discovered I had some Hershey Kisses in a bowl on my coffee table, while we were gone she got up in that bowl and managed to unwrap about 10 of those Hershey Kisses and eat them...............she never got sick and it didn't kill her, but I never left chocolate hershey kisses on the coffee table any more.

 

[Peeko]

I had a small dog a few years ago I kept in my house, she discovered I had some Hershey Kisses in a bowl on my coffee table, while we were gone she got up in that bowl and managed to unwrap about 10 of those Hershey Kisses and eat them...............she never got sick and it didn't kill her, but I never left chocolate hershey kisses on the coffee table any more.

My last dog did this, too! I came home to find little balls of Hershey Kisses wrappers and the paper strips all over the floor (licked clean of chocolate). She ate almost half of the 16 oz bag I had accidentally left on the coffee table while I went out to run errands. She'd never had chocolate before.

I FREAKED OUT, thought I was gonna lose my dog; crying all night.
She was perfectly fine, lived another 9 wonderful years.
But I never let her have chocolate again. It's funny how real life experiences can be outweighed by mass hysteria. Aaaah chocolate will kill them! Even though that had been proven wrong before my eyes, I was still scared by the media playing it up as a certain death knell. Yes, I consider scientific journals as part of the media monolith. Most studies are funded by private interests, even if they are performed by a public institution.

It's also conversely true that a lot of "super foods" are hyped up and aren't as medicinal or nutritious as they are made out to be. But garlic is a definite medicine powerhouse from nature. I eat it every day for that very reason and should I need antibiotics for my animals in future, I'll certainly try it before buying man-made pharmaceuticals.

I've never trusted anything that a huge mega-corporation says is safe for me or my animals. Which is the main reason why I don't feed them the corn, soy and vitamins made from petroleum aka pet store bird feed.

 

[ChristineR]

With chocolate, you have to worry more about the kind with more cocoa in it than milk chocolate. There's a toxic dose and they have to eat a lot of milk chocolate to reach that threshold. Still, like you said, it's better to be safe than sorry and just keep any chocolate out of their reach!

I keep activated charcoal on hand to give to my dogs when they get into stuff like that. My pup ate a bag of M&Ms last summer and I was freaking out, too. I fed him some charcoal and took him to the ER vet. It turned out he didn't eat enough to be toxic, but it's nice to get that charcoal on board before you head to the vet, just in case.