Chocolate can be fatal to dogs.

My wife's step-mother had a black poodle cross she called Shadow.

Her previous dog was a King Charles Cavalier spaniel.

There is a massive difference in the intellectual capabilities between the two breeds. 

Poodles are very bright animals.

She believed that, because she had 'trained' the spaniel, she knew how to train a dog.

Not so. The smarter a dog is, the harder it is to train because they will think for themselves and will do what you want them to do when it suits them.

Dogs are much happier when you assert yourself as the leader of their pack, but if you cannot do so, they will assume the leader's role because one of you has to lead.

This meant that Shad was in charge of the house and wouldn't do anything he was asked unless a reward was available.

Shadow's favourite reward was chocolate, and he was very well behaved when there was chocolate available, which he could smell easily.

Consequently, Val always had chocolate in the house.

Shadow was also very good at stealing any available treat.

Not everything we like or like to do is good for us, and dogs have no self-control when it comes to food they especially like.

How does chocolate affect dogs?

In Shadows case, it resulted in convulsions that increased in frequency until he was having multiple episodes a day.

Val decided, with the Vets advice, that they would have to terminate his life at this stage.

Who is responsible for the death of Shadow?

I'm not sure that Val knew or fully understood that she shouldn't be feeding Shadow chocolate, and I have not told her that she is the responsible party in this event.

Ultimately we are all responsible for what happens in our lives to the extent that we can make decisions that affect us.

Regards,
Brent.

P.S.  All of us have a thing called "confirmation bias", where we are more likely to believe a story that confirms what we already think is right.

Facebook uses this as part of its algorithm to keep feeding you the same type of content that you liked in the past.

The problem with this is that you continuously get your biases reinforced and never get any opportunity to question your existing beliefs because you never get exposed to them.

Why is this a bad thing?

Because it polarises the communities and pushes them further apart.
 

OK, not necessarily relevant to this email, but your time is running out, so I need to remind you to pick this up if you want to make videos quickly and easily on any subject. https://go.wm-tips.com/discount

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