the dangers of dogs eating beans

Most evenings we eat vegetables and so does Penny. Her favorite place in the house is near the food preparation bench, where she sits patiently waiting for off-cuts of vegetables - carrots, particularly. One thing she loves also is the end of a bean. We've been giving her little bits of green beans for ages.

Lately I've been growing broad beans in the garden, mainly so I can dig them in and add to the nitrogen in the soil. But last night the pods of beans looked so enticing that we decided to cook some and eat them. (Okay, those who know we were supposed to eat the beans inside, and not the pods, are wincing, I guess.)

Human number two threw a couple of cut-off ends to Penny and decided to throw the rest in the compost, because of the funny whitish look of them.

Thank goodness she didn't give Penny the usual amount, because ten minutes later Penny was in the garden throwing up. And again, thirty minutes later, after she had her evening meal.

Of course, other than keeping an eye on her, it was immediately off to the internet to look for information.

First of all I came across this story, from bakers8:

I came home from work this week and thought that I would see if any of the broad beans were ready for eating. Upon viewing the vegetable garden I wondered at the fact that there were quite a few long stems of beans lying flat. It hadn’t been overly windy that day and it was dry. What had happened? Then I saw that there were no beans on any of the stems that were on the ground. No beans?

I puzzled for a while, picked some beans and went inside to prepare them for dinner. The chooks were happy to receive the empty pods and I thought no more about it – until M asked if I had fed Terry some broad beans. A lot of broad beans.

“No” I said, “I don’t think he likes them”.

“Well” said M, “there are a number of piles of dog vomit around the yard and it’s all broad beans!” (apologies to the faint and/or those with vivid imaginations).

Sure enough, there was the evidence that somebody had decided to have a little smorgasbord prior to my return. And he must be feeling rather poorly as he hadn’t performed the other disgusting dog habit of cleaning up after himself!

I also found this on GardenWeb:

Beans in the family Phaseolus Vulgaris contain a chemical called Phytohaemagglutinin. If you cook it, the chemical is released and poses no threat. Raw, it's pretty nasty. In humans, eating small amounts of it via raw beans isn't usually fatal (from what I know, so don't read this, eat some raw beans then sue me when you die or get deathly ill), but even eating a small dose can cause some serious sickness like vomiting and general malaise and all. It's not usually fatal in humans unless larger amounts are consumed, but it's still dangerous enough to where I wouldn't eat raw beans.
It's dangerous though to most animals, not just humans. So, a dog would be just as likely to get it, if not more likely, as a human.

After all this research, I began to wonder whether my plants were in fact the same broad beans that others were writing about. However, I felt sure I had identified my plants correctly when I looked at the photos on this site, and read:

In much of the Anglophone world, the name broad bean is used for the large-seeded cultivars grown for human food, while horse bean and field bean refer to cultivars with smaller, harder seeds (more like the wild species) used for animal feed, though their stronger flavour is preferred in some human food recipes, such as falafel.
The term fava bean (from the Italian fava, meaning "broad bean") is its most common name in the United States, with broad bean being the most common name in the UK.

By the way, Penny seems fine today. Also, quite separately from her reaction to the beans, we scraped our own cooked pods into the compost because they tasted so awful.

Penny ate a little bit of chocolate

Penny believes every walk is a foraging expedition. And when she finds something, she has to swallow it quickly, before her humans steal it.

We've just returned from a walk around the block, during which she nabbed some chocolate from a neighbour's driveway. I'm used to the sound of chop bones being crunched - you can usually grab them out of her mouth. I'm used to the disappointing snap and pop of cooked chicken bones going down her gullet before I can retrieve them. But who expects chocolate?

Given that we're a household of chocaholics, we've done well to make sure Penny has never scoffed any chocolate in the house. (Well, there was that huge packet of sweet biscuits that disappeared from the inaccessibly high kitchen table when Penny was a puppy...)

After we arrived home I drove back to check it was milk chocolate, and then I hurried home to look on the Net for information about the symptoms of poisoning. I''m feeling more relaxed since I read a report that says a dog her size (33pounds/ 15 Kilos) would have to eat 33 ounces of milk chocolate to be in danger.

At Net.Pet Magazine I got more details. The half-life of the dangerous ingredient - theobromine - is 17.5 hours. (I like that, because it sets a time limit on my worrying.) Milk chocolate has 44 mg of theobromine per ounce of chocolate. Therefore the toxic dose for a 50 lb dog would be 50 oz of milk chocolate. I don't quite understand the maths of that, but it comes out to the same amount as the other site.

On the other hand, following a link from Dolittler, my favorite veterinary blogger, I arrived at the ASPCA and read:

Chocolate contains large amounts of methylxanthines, which, if ingested in significant amounts, can cause vomiting, diarrhea, panting, excessive thirst, urination, hyperactivity, and in severe cases, abnormal heart rhythm, tremors and seizures.

Wait a minute! I've just got my head around one big word. What is this 'methylxanthine'?

And then, on a medication guide for humans, I discovered that theobromine is a type of methylxanthine, which solved that little mystery!

At a site for vets to share information I was interested to note that dogs may, however, show symptoms at a much lower dose, as low as ten percent of the fatal dose. However, the vet says the danger from milk chocolate is very low.

But, by my calculation, that's only 3.3 ounces. So I'll be keeping an eye on her. She's barking up a storm at the front door at the moment, but I think that's just her usual reaction to next door's cat being in our front yard.

chicken jerky from China a world-wide danger

Have readers in other countries been warned about chicken jerky from China? I thought it was just an Australian problem but now I've seen a warning on Dog Blog for pet owners in the US, so I thought I would pass it on immediately. Dog Blog reports that the FDA issued a warning IN SEPTEMBER 2007 but does not have the authority to demand a recall.

I'm not going to feed Penny any sort of chicken jerky at all - unless I make it myself!

PS I've just found a chicken jerky recipe with clearer instructions.

more on the recall of KraMar dog treats

Here is a link to the KraMar media release on the recall.

And here is the text of an email that is circulating. I notice that it seems to be by Miles Kemp, author of the article I linked to in my previous post, but the text seems to be somewhat different. I think it's worth posting here for the extra information it contains.

poisoned meat is causing kidney damage in small dogs


By Miles Kemp

The Advertiser

December 09, 2008


Poisoned meat

Alert ... hundreds of small dogs have been affected by poisoned meat as
experts try to track down its source.

* Hundreds of dogs hit in poison scare
* Experts try to track down source
* Meat from China suspected

UNIVERSITY experts are urgently trying to track down the source of a deadly
poison which has struck hundreds of small dogs, with pet food meat from
China the suspected cause.

The Australian Veterinary Association has issued a national warning to all
vets to report any serious kidney damage in small dogs in the past month.

"We have only become aware of this in the last three or four weeks, and we
need to make people aware there are some clear indications there is a
problem out there," AVA national president Mark Lawrie told The Advertiser
yesterday.

Mr Lawrie said the AVA had discussed the cases with a prominent pet-food
supplier suspected to be the source of the poison, which the AVA would not
name for legal reasons. Vets and small-dog owners have been told to look out
for warning signs:

INCREASED thirst and urination.

Related Coverage,

REDUCED appetite and lethargy.

VOMITING and weakness.

University of Sydney researchers have issued a national alert over the
kidney-destroying poison - but after a legal threat from the company, have
been banned by the university from making any public comment.

The AVA had also warned vets - in a national alert to all members to be
aware of the problem - against making comments to the media about the case.

One university researcher, who would not be named, said there was enough
evidence to recall the product but the safety message had been hampered by
threats from the company.

"We have not been able to call for cases and an open call to vets for cases
has just been made and we are aware of dozens of cases and suspect there are
hundreds," he said. "What is important is that the meat is sourced in China
and I think pet owners can trust the product if all the ingredients are
sourced in Australia."

The researcher said owners should be concerned about any breed but
especially dogs the size of a small terrier.

Studies of dead dogs are also being carried out to identify the cause, with
one brand of meat suspected of causing symptoms.

Vets have been urged to contact the University of Sydney Faculty of
Veterinary Science via email A.Arteaga@usyd.edu.au if they have suspected
cases of the poisoning.

KraMar chicken treats recalled - made in China

On the ABC news tonight there was a report that KraMar dried chicken treats are being recalled because of a suspicion that they are poisoning dogs.There is also a report on the AdelaideNow site.
Dogs who are affected may be drinking and urinating a lot, be unusually lethargic or vomiting.

I'm glad now that I'm a worrier. A couple of months ago I stopped feeding these great-looking treats because I like to read the fine print on things and I noticed they are made in China. Nowadays I don't feed anything to Penny unless I know all ingredients were sourced in Australia or New Zealand or unless the packet specifies no ingredients come from China.

I actually have a packet of these KraMar treats in the cupboard. I didn't want to feed them to her, but the treats appeared so healthy that it seemed a pity to throw them out.

Now I will throw them out!

dogs are in danger if they eat Xylitol sugar substitute

Reading Dolittler's blog today I was surprised to learn the extent of the danger the sugar-substitute Xylitol presents to dogs.

Since I read her previous posts on the danger of this product I've been been warning my friends not to feed anything with artificial sweeteners - but I didn't realise that Xylitol is used now in Rescue Remedy and in some multivitamins.

Dolittler (a practising vet in the US) says that more dogs are poisoned by TicTacs than by any other product, partly because they have such a high level of Xylitol and partly because they are so ubiquitous.

An online article by Sherrill Sellman says that the Finns rediscovered Xylitol during a sugar shortage in World War Two, making it from birch bark. It had been first manufactured in 1891 by a German chemist.

Snopes.com has an account of a nearly fatal accidnet where a dog ate a couple of pieces of chewing gum.

I guess the message is, don't feed your dog anything produced for humans, unless you research the ingredients first.