My dog ate a weed chocolate bar that was left in my dog walker’s truck yesterday. Accidents happen. I’m not upset at all, especially since I love this dog walker and have had them for years. The circumstances really weren’t their fault, and the dog is fine. They also have done an incredible job taking care of the pooch and it did cost them $1k in vet hospital bills. It also gave me a chance to do some math during that period when the vet and dog walker were fairly freaked out about lethal doses of THC for dogs, and I thought it might be helpful for others if this should ever happen. This is California after all.
The white beast they call Sela is 19kg so that means she would have to eat 6.3 grams of weed for it to be a lethal dose, depending on which shady internet study on marijuana toxicity in pets you believe. Since there is roughly 1-8% THC in weed (thanks, college) I know that she would have to eat about 504mg of THC to be in serious danger. She would also have to eat 160g of chocolate for it to be lethal. The actual numbers she consumed were 50g of dark chocolate and 180mg of THC, so it wasn’t near lethal, however there can be seizures and nerve damage even at lower doses so we were concerned. Also, she was freaked the fuck out and not in a happy place – you may have seen what an entire weed chocolate bar can do to a human and it’s not pretty, so imagine what it could do to a 50lb dog.

Luckily they were able to induce vomiting only fifteen minutes after she ate the weed bar, hooked her up to an IV, and had her eat these charcoal bricks which bind the THC and pass it through her system without the drug messing her up too much more . The minimal lethal intravenous THC dose for dogs, from some weird-ass 1971 study, is 25 to 99 mg per kg of weight so for her weight she wasn’t in danger of dying, but it wasn’t a fun night. She’s happily recovering now and doesn’t seem to have any lasting side-effects. I was surprised at how little accurate information I could find on lethal doses of THC for dogs, so wanted to put down the numbers in case it helps someone else.