访谈录 2008-10-06&10-08 你在毒害心爱的宠物么（上）（在线收听）

Everyone knows that chocolate is bad for your pets, but you might be surprised that some of the other people foods that are not only bad for your animals and could also kill them. GMA now’s resident vet Dr. Marty Becker joins us again with some of the worst human foods you can feed your fat, pet rather. But first up, we want to meet two friends from Humane Society of New York.

This is Mea. What‘s this little guy’s name?

Ah Taylor.

Taylor, both are for adoption.

They are friends.

They are, so cute. I’ve never seen two -- a little kitten and a dog, get, you know, get along so well. This guy, I understand, swallowed 13 pennies?

Well, a lot of dogs have what we call pica appetites, eat strange things and again that, they tend not to pass pennies, or anything like that. So that’s a medical emergency, the owner, you know, had abandoned this dog because of swallowing the penny, so they did a life saving surgery and announced it available for adoption.

Make no sense to me. Dr. Becker.

You want go to see your Mama?

Bad pica! If you like to adopt these cuties, it’s the Humane Society of New York, thank you so much. OK, so let’s get to it. So chocolate, first thing first, it’s the first thing we think of food that can potentially, you know, kill our pets.

Not all chocolates are created equal. First of all, the chocolates are sorta bad, why chocolates?  There are something called methylxanthine and theobromine. Theobromine is like cassine, if you think of it like that. But for dogs it seems that chocolate it causes increased heart rate, increased respiration seizures, even death. (Really) Now for dark chocolate, it only takes one ounce for a ten-pound dog to cause problems, milk chocolates 10 ounces for a 10-pound dog, white chocolate which is basically sugar and butter is really no problem at all.

Now let’s move on. You mentioned coffee. Coffee and caffeinic products, I don’t know this can cause the same harm in our pets.

Even two and three coffee beans can cause problem in a pet, and again, they are not aware, we kinda like that coffee jo, you know, to go  to Starbuck, get the whole day started with the heart raise and stuff, but it’s not good for pets, and again you just got don't ever leave something like that down, don't ever leave to place where they can get after because they like that kind of aroma especially flavored coffee. So don’t have them down.

This was a shock to me, macadamia nuts. I had no idea.

We have, you know, I go to Hawaii, bring them home, and certain recipes you have, here is a thing they do, they can cause vomit, or diarrhea or weakness and seizures, but they cause, it mimics a word like paralysis, just like the dog that has spinal cord  injury. Really? It happens about 12 hours after they eat the macadamia nuts, within 40 hours they’re walking stiffly, even  72 hours they recovered. There’s actually been pets that have been euthanized because people thought they could no longer walk, when in fact, they could just ingest macadamia nuts. So, don’t let them around stairs or around cords or something, just keep them in someplace quiet if they happen to ingest it.

Ok, or keep them in Hawaii, don't bring them home, poor pets. OK, shocking, gum!

Oh, gum.

Gum is not good, huh?

This is a big problem. There's a product called xylitol, and xylitol is something that’s a common ingredient in a lot of sugarless gums, other candies stuffs as well, but mainly gums. Just two little tiny pieces of this gum can cause a problem for average-sized dog. What it does is it causes a massive release of insulin that causes hypoglycemia low blood sugar. So the pet becomes weak, they became in-coordinated; people think they’re kind of drunk, within several days it actually goes to liver failures. So this stuff don’t leave it in your purse and slide down there, it will, you know, get the dog in the car; it gets into your purse. (All right.) don’t leave it in table. Keep that stuff up just like it’s a poison.

I never heard about this before. I’ve never give my dog frozen grapes. Apparently, it’s a bad idea. Thank God I never did it. What’s the deal?

Well, a lot of people like it, because they like the texture of it. For one thing, you like the coolest stuff. We don’t even know what causes the problem with this. We don’t know how many it takes to cause a problem, but what it does is grapes and raisins cause kidney failure. Use it two to three days after ingestion, and it's one of most common causes for animal poison control the pet will get, you know, someone would go grocery shop, leave grapes to fridge, even pounds of grapes, two to three days later they are in kidney failure. So again no foods  contain raisins either.

Avocados can harm your pet.

Avocados are big problems for birds and small animals, rodents. What avocados cause accumulation of fluid on the lungs, accumulation of the fluid around the heart. And it’s actually, you know, inside, it's not just in the leaves, it’s in skins, it’s in the fruit itself. And so that’s just taboo if you have birds or small animals.

To birds and small animals, yeah, dogs, you’re saying OK?

It’s actually ok for dogs, most dogs.

And cats, OK.