His first Christmas came early for Copper the young boxer when his owners accidentally left the door to the living room open. They somehow forgot to shut it when they went out visiting friends just before Christmas.

It was not long before he and Wilfred the kitten crept cautiously in and started to explore. Wilfred had a great deal of fun running up and down the Christmas tree and listening to the noise the baubles made as he knocked them off the tree.

Then Copper had a sniff at the strange packages under the tree. The big flat one smelt the most interesting. It was not too hard to get in through the paper and start on the chocolate inside.

By the time Copper's owners came home, Wilfred had curled up and gone to sleep among the tinsel from the tree, and Copper was sitting looking rather uneasily at the remains of the pound and a half of chocolate and its foil wrapping that he had just eaten.

When his owners' annoyance at the mess the two animals had made subsided they realised that while Wilfred was fine, Copper really was not well. He had been a little bit sick and brought up some saliva and pieces of silver paper and was very quiet and subdued.

Twenty minutes later when I saw him at the surgery his owners were shocked and horrified discover that dogs can actually die of chocolate poisoning. Chocolate contains a stimulant similar to the caffeine in tea and coffee which can affect some dogs hearts.

When I examined Copper his heart rate was fast and his gums were pale. An ECG recording of his heart confirmed his heartbeat was irregular. I explained that the foil he had eaten would almost certainly pass through on its own but that the chocolate he had eaten had affected his heartbeat which would take a few hours to wear off.

I put Copper on an intravenous drip and a heart monitor and made him comfortable in a nice warm kennel under the watchful eye of one of my veterinary nurses. Eight hours later he was much more his normal self and trying to pull his drip out. His gums had returned to a healthy pink colour and his breathing was back to normal.

He will have to stay on a light diet for the next couple of days, and his owners are going to watch him closely on his walks to make sure he is passing his bowel motions properly and has not got a blockage.

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