Our dog's close call with xylitol: a common food sweetener that doubles as a poison.

I've always heard that chocolate and candies were bad for dogs, but I didn't know exactly what the deal was, really.

The day before a trip to Disney World our dog Scout, who's a 6 month old Goldendoodle (becoming more and more adventurous and curious about the world), weaseled his way onto the kitchen counter while my girlfriend and I were at work.

Here's Scout being deceptively adorable

Usually Scout just likes to eat our socks and underwear, but this time he got into a 1 lbs bag of xylitol, which is a naturally-occurring sugar substitute that we purchase for my girlfriends father as a sugar replacement.

Xylitol, if you aren't aware, can be found in a lot of different things. If something says it's 'sugar free', the label may contain Xylitol. Chewing gum, chocolate, and peanut butter are just a few items from a large list that can contain this stuff. Here's one such list, for example: http://www.preventivevet.com/xylitol-products-toxic-for-dogs

According to Pet Poison Helpline, "the dose needed to cause poisoning is at least 0.05 grams per pound of body weight (0.1 grams per kilogram of body weight)... Chewing gums and breath mints typically contain 0.22-1.0 gram of xylitol per piece of gum or per mint. Thus, to achieve a potentially toxic dose, a 10 pound dog would only have to eat one piece of gum!"
http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/pet-safety-tips/my-dog-just-ate-xylitol-gum-is-xylitol-poisonous-to-dogs/

"With other common brands of gum which contain 1 g/piece of gum, only 2 pieces would result in severe hypoglycemia, while 10 pieces can result in liver failure"
https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/xylitol-toxicity-in-dogs

Perhaps you can imagine how scared we were coming home to a 1 lbs bag of powdered Xylitol ripped open and scattered throughout the kitchen... Scout was 30 lbs when this happened. 1 tablespoon can kill a 65 pound dog.

When dogs eat Xylitol their blood sugar levels can drop to life-threatening levels, rapidly. Too much of this can cause dogs to vomit, become lethargic, have seizures, coma's and can be fatal. It upsets me that such a small amount of this can be dangerous.

To give you an idea about Scout's personality, he super wiggley and always excited.

We had to buy him a slow-feed bowl because he would eat whatever we gave him, as fast as possible.

The day he got to the Xylitol he seemed very slow, wouldn't eat, and couldn't walk properly. We had to blend yogurt in with his food so he had something in his stomach, and I got him to drink water by spraying the hose out back; he loves to bite at the water stream.

In the end I think he didn't know how to eat the powder that came out of the bag. If he had gotten to something chew-able, I think this story would have ended much differently, but thankfully scout is ok; he's back to his wiggley self and has even learned how to eat food like a normal dog! We took him camping for the first time a week after the incident and he absolutely loved it. He swam without even thinking about it, and ran around in the bushes and got himself as dirty as he could. We got lucky, but I wanted to share this story in case you weren't entirely aware of the dangers and severity of some of the things we eat.

With love from Scout.