We just got back home from being out for a couple hours, and after being greeted by our excited dog, we found a torn open coffee KCup on her bed. Sure enough, Foxy got into something on the counter, and this is the first time she even grabbed one of the KCups and ate the coffee inside! We are already know that coffee is bad for dogs, but what about KCups, and how much coffee is in them?
Fortunately Foxy is a 80 pound dog, and she has already gotten her way into plenty of food she hasn’t eaten in the past, but it’s still important to know what she just ate. I quickly ran online to do some research on dogs eating coffee KCups, and came across someone else with the same problem. Instead of going directly to the vet, they used an online “Ask a Vet” service to talk with a veterinarian online… here’s how it went down, and what you need to know about a dogs weight, size and the effects of them eating a coffee KCup.
Customer Question:
My dog chewed up a box of coffee K-cups. How much ground coffee is toxic for dogs? She weighs about 65 pounds. I’m not sure how much she may have ingested. Each K-cup has about 1 oz in it and, most of them still contained some coffee in them and there was some on the floor. The box had about 16 K-cups in it.
Vet Responses: (Dr. Steven Osborne)
– From calculations based on instant coffee, the lethal dose is 73 teaspoons so even if the ground coffee has twice as much caffene, it would still need 36 teaspoons to be toxic. Since all 10 Kcups contain 20 teaspoons and some of it was not consumed I think she will be ok
– Typical symptoms of cafffeine exposure are hyperexcitability, tremors , convulsions, vomiting. If she develops these symptoms then you should take her to the vet at that time. Again the longer she goes without showing any of these symptoms,the less likely she will have trouble. It has been too long to induce vomiting. By now the caffeine is likely already in the intestinal tract and absorbed into theblood stream
– Just keep her close to you tonight so yo will know if she develops any of these signs.
– She may develop diarrhea possibly , but it wold be more in response to irritation from the coffee and less likely from the actual caffeine. To read the whole conversation in full from JustAnswer, you can click here.
Summary
In this scenario, the dog ate a whole box of KCups, which could easily be lethal for any size dog, but especially smaller ones. The important thing to know is that the lethal dose of instant coffee is 73 teaspoons, and 36 teaspoons if ground coffee. Depending on the amount of coffee your dog eats, and their weight, you will have to do some calculating. Either way, it is recommended that you always contact your vet with any questions or concerns you may have at the time of the event.
