Monday, April 12, 2010

BANISH from your garden- WARNING





Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this to those who do.
Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Target, Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other garden supply stores contains a lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.
Over the weekend, the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. The dogs loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog (Calypso) decided the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk . Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.

Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's web site,

this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.


Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that "It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it."
*Snopes site gives the following information:http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp *


Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline. A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.

**PLEASE PASS THIS ON**

2 comments:

rocky-dog said...

mama told me she saw this type of mulch was being used on some kind of home improvement show. never saw mama quite react that way -- she blasted off a letter to the television people to tell them NOT to use this stuff as us 4leggeds can DIE from it. Why oh why does stuff that smells and tastes so good is soooooo bad for us??

be careful 'vie

Rocky

ps good luck on the duck egg hunting. it's too wet here to do much of anything outside. it's been raining for the last two days. on the plus side though, mama didn't give me the planned bath yesterday as a result. Hey rain-gods, keep sending it my way!

silvieon4 said...

Rocky, I am getting groomed on friday. The Bash is Sat and momma has issues about me being pretty and clean. Shaking my head... the woman was a victim of early potty training... what can I say? Your momma was right. God profit reigns in America. Every day dogs die.... for God profit. You know that they could add a 3 cent drop of chemicals that would make it smell horrible to us?