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Pre-Order your Spay/Neuter License Plate

This special license plate, sponsored by the Alabama Veterinary Medical Foundation, will cost $50.00 (plus your normal tag renewal fee). Of this, $41.50 will go to a special fund to provide spay/neuter services for the pets of Alabama residents currently on Medicaid.

The plates will be issued only if a minimum of 1,000 tags are prepurchased before October 31, 2008. For more information, contact your county's license plate issuing office.

Cocoa Bean Garden Mulch - Delicious Poison for Dogs

Cocoa bean mulch is becoming available from big-box garden centers such as Target and Home Depot. It's biodegradable, it breaks down to release needed nutrients to the soil, it's attractive, and it smells like chocolate.

Unfortunately, it can also poison your dogs.

The mulch, a byproduct of chocolate manufacture, contains a fairly large amount of a chemical similar to caffeine called theobromine. Dogs who eat large amounts of the chocolatey-smelling mulch may become ill and exhibit signs consistent with methylxanthine toxicosis, which is similar to those seen with chocolate poisonings.

The ASPCA recommends that gardeners with dogs not use cocoa bean mulch where unsupervised dogs might have access to it. If you think your dog might have eaten chocolate or cocoa bean mulch, call your veterinarian immediately.

Treatment will depend on how much cocoa bean mulch a dog has eaten, when the mulch was eaten, and whether the dog is sick. Recommended care may include placing your dog under veterinary observation, inducing vomiting, and/or controlling a rapid heartbeat or seizures. The entire contents of the study on Cocoa Bean Mulch As A Cause Of Methylxanthine Toxicosis In Dogs can be found at: http://www.apcc.aspca.org/cocoabeanmulch.

On behalf of the animals,
Mary Ellen Tidwell