Chocolate Alert! How To Keep Your Cat Safe This Easter

A new report from The Independent highlights the risk of cat poisoning for Easter 2024.

Concern in mounting because last year there was a spike in emergency cat poisoning calls to PawSquad over Easter. Calls related to chocolate poisoning had doubled over the previous year’s Easter period.

The CEO PawSquad, Dr Mark Boddy, MRCVS, is quoted as saying:

“Last Easter, we saw calls relating to chocolate ingestion more than double during Easter week. Cases of toxicity and gastric upset in general can be up to triple their usual volume around holidays like Easter, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day.

In these instances, it is crucial to be able to speak to a vet quickly, particularly while in-person vets may be closed.”

As people celebrate Easter, there are lots of chocolate, foods, and items in houses that can be ingested by cats and make them sick or worse.

Chocolate, grapes, and raisins are a big risk to cats. The toxicity of chocolate especially can cause a range of problems from mild diarrhea, increased thirst, and restlessness. More serious issues are vomiting, tachycardia (increased heart rate), seizures, and coma.

Chocolate contains caffeine which will cause acceleration of a cat’s heart rate, elevated temperature, and restlessness. With no tolerance to caffeine that humans may have, ingesting caffeine can be very dangerous for cats.

Chocolate may also contain theobromine. This is a principal alkaloid of the cacao bean. It may have some therapeutic effects on humans, but for cats it can be lethal. It negatively affects their respitory system and central nervous system.

There are other foods that can cause emergency problems for cats. Refined dairy products (with lots of sugar and lactose) are not generally good for cats and can cause ailments.

Raw dough used for baking can be problematic too. The live yeast can ferment in the warmth of a cat’s digestive system and cause ethanol and carbon dioxide build up which is an emergency issue.

Alcohol isn’t really that great for humans, and it is definitely not great for cats either. If your cat is thirsty, it may be tempted to lap up some alcoholic drink left untended. So keep these out of harm’s way. Keep your cat’s water supply well topped up so they have a source of regular water and aren’t so tempted to drink something else.

Keep an eye out for non-food items that can be ingested by cats. Easter baskets of various types come out at this time of year. Your cat may be tempted to run their claws through it and eat the plastic/paper/grass strands. If they eat the strands, this can play havoc in their digestive tract. So avoid an unncesseary emergency trip to the vet by keeping those baskets away from kitty’s claws.

Easter flowers can be an unexpected source of poisoning for your cat. Watch our for Lillies, Alpine and Persian Violet, Sowbread (cyclamens), and the red flowering bulbs of the amaryllis. Cats that nibble on these flowers can get tachycardia, seizures and even death.

Over Easter, Dr Boddy recommends keeping an eye on your cat for any problems. If there are any signs of toxicity, take your cat to an emergency vet as soon as possible.

Otherwise, keep you cat in a safe place if there are Easter celebrations occuring in the house. Keep chocolate and food scraps from where your cat can get them. Remember to keep your cat well hydrated too.