With most peoples dogs wanting to eat whatever their owners are eating, it is very common for a dog to end up stealing some type of food that they really shouldn’t be eating.
This then results in their owner being worried due to most people knowing that chocolate is toxic to dogs and thinking that their dog may end up having some serious health problems.
This has resulted in a range of random questions each month from people whose dogs have been eating chocolate bars with a number of people specifically mentioning how their dog ate a snickers bar and asking for advice on what they should do.
We totally understand why we see these questions from the dog-owning community and it is totally normal for people to be worried about their pets in situations like this.
Thankfully, the vast majority of dogs who do eat a snickers bar or any other type of chocolate bar are usually totally fine.
Although chocolate can be toxic for dogs, the amount of chocolate required to cause issues in dogs, especially milk chocolate that a snicker contains is surprisingly high.
We will go into this in much more detail throughout the article to try and explain how there is usually nothing to worry about but if you are nervous, you can book a video call with a vet to have them assess your dog for you.
My Dog Ate A Snickers Bar!
It is surprisingly common for a dog to eat a snickers bar due to the popularity of snickers bars and the fact that dogs will go out of their way to steal food from their owners.
Thankfully, a snickers bar does not contain enough chocolate to cause any serious issues with a healthy dog and the majority of dogs who eat a snickers bar will be totally fine.
Most dogs will suffer symptoms of chocolate toxicity after around 9 ounces of milk chocolate with serious issues starting to develop at around 20 ounces of milk chocolate being injected.
A normal snickers bar is around 35 percent chocolate meaning that a normal snickers bar contains around 0.6 ounces of milk chocolate.
Although you should never intentionally feed your dog chocolate, this is well within what is considered safe for a dog who has accidentally ate chocolate.
Smaller dog breeds or dogs with health conditions do usually need less chocolate than other dogs to have issues with chocolate but the chocolate in a snickers bar is still well within what is considered safe for most dogs.
What Happens If A Dog Eats A Snickers Bar?
The majority of the time when a dog eats a snickers bar, it will digest the snickers without issue due to a normal snickers bar containing far too little chocolate to actually trigger any toxicity issues in most healthy dogs.
In some situations, this can result in your dog having side effects due to the chocolate though and these can include vomiting, shaking, constipation, and diarrhea.
If you do notice any of those symptoms in your dog after it has eaten a snickers bar, you should seek professional advice from a veterinarian as soon as possible.
In some situations, your veterinarian may have to offer special medication to try and limit the result of the toxicity of the chocolate in your dog but this is very rare due to a single snickers just not having enough chocolate in it to trigger the issue.
Any dog that does suffer these side-effects from eating chocolate is either suffering from other health problems or has been able to eat far more than a single chocolate bar.
It can be common for children to sneak the family dog chocolate without you knowing it and this can quickly build up, especially with a household with multiple children.
Are Snickers Bars Toxic To Dogs?
A snickers is technically toxic to dogs as it contains chocolate but a single snickers bar does not contain enough chocolate to trigger any effects of chocolate toxicity in a healthy dog.
Still, we would never recommend that you go out and feed your dog a snickers bar as there is always a risk but for the most part, a dog who eats a snickers bar will not have issues.
King sized snickers bars are becoming increasingly popular and it is still rare that your dog will have any issues with chocolate toxicity if it managed to eat a full king sized snickers bar too.
Due to the other ingredients in a snickers bar, they contain a surprisingly low amount of chocolate with this working to your favour as it reduces the chances of your dog having any problems.
Some dogs will not even eat the full snickers bar either. If you have multiple dogs then it may have been shared amongst all of your dogs or a single dog may have ate a part of the snickers bar and then left it somewhere for you to find months later.
This also works to your advantage as it means that less chocolate from the snickers bar is in your dog’s system and it further reduces the potential problems of your dog having a toxic reaction to the snickers.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over a dog eating a snickers bar to an end. We hope that we have been able to help our readers better understand that although there is a potential thread for anyone whose dog eats a snickers bar, the risk is so small that it is usually nothing to worry about. The majority of dogs who do manage to eat snickers bar or even a king sized snickers bar will not have any serious or long term issues and should be totally fine without even experiencing the symptoms of chocolate toxicity.
