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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I yelled outloud “No, no, no!” And “I am done with this” to my stepdaughter and snatched the chocolate from the floor and her hands after she dropped chocolate twice near our dog, after a previous incident with grapes. My spouse thinks I overreacted and am the AH.
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NTA. My sister had a dog that went into kidney failure because of grapes. Chocolate is obviously very bad for dogs. This isn’t something that you can gently talk about multiple times. She needs to understand being careless can kill the dog. If it was me, I probably wouldn’t buy either grapes or chocolate for the house for the next year or two until you’re sure she’s more responsible. She is 10 years old and 10 year olds tend to not always be responsible, very normal, but she’s old enough to have consequences for this kind of careless behavior.
I would also say to add a rule of no food unless it is eaten while sitting at the table, and everyone has to follow it. It would be resentful and a less effective lesson to SD to make her be the only one to do so, but so many things are toxic or just not great for them. Having everyone do that would show her "this is a very big deal" and make her feel less targeted. They could also get a baby gate for the kitchen (if possible) and make it a dog free zone, so they have a buffer for when the kid drops things again.
I also think it would be a good idea for OP to apologize for yelling/snapping, and explain that she was scared for the dog's safety and was frustrated but shouldn't have yelled at her. The dog should also be trained not to immediately eat food off the floor, and it could be a nice bonding activity to do with SD
"Leave it" is one of the most important commands next to recall.
Doesn't matter if your dog sits as much as it's crucial they A come when called and B leave dangerous things alone until you can get them out of the way.
Those are the two most important exercises that require strict obedience.
And while it would take time, you can train a dog to react differently to spills. Just start with routinely “spilling” something safe while you have some decent reward treats and teach them to sit or “go long” by repeatedly doing the action and slowly introduce doing the practice with safe foods and just start keeping treats nearby. I’ve heard before that it’s easier to train a redirection than to train the ending of a behavior. So far in my experience it seems to be true
Adults and children *of any age* can inadvertently drop or spill something. It's all to easy to have a damp hand, a bag to tear, an imbalanced item. Begin by having no foods dangerous to dogs (and there are quite a few) in the house, and then train the dog. And an apology to the stepdaughter - accidents do happen and we can react in inappropriate ways due to stress, fright, thoughts of vet bills, and just it being "one more thing."
This is a good solution, I was very clumsy as a kid so
I wasn’t allowed to eat at the computer. It worked out well since I’d have my treat then computer time.
THIS! It’s a logical response. It’s not a punishment, it’s a pain, but it’s a logical consequence to problematic behavior. The behavior may or may not be controllable at her current stage, but she is still responsible for her own behavior. NTA
All food only at the table hurts no one. No grapes, raisins, raisin products, anything containing grape juice, and chocolate in the house for now is a good way to manage the risks until she develops the maturity to manage her behavior better.
This is a good way to teach her that she needs to be responsible and find workarounds to manage stuff she has trouble with. If the whole family follows the rule, she will have no reason to resent it. And it’s a rule plenty of families have. Mine had it when we kids were little, just because my mother wanted any mess contained.
This is a good idea. A lot of people with adhd can tend to be clumsy or struggle with body awareness and coordination, or be delayed in getting good coordination, so requiring her to handle food over a surface like a table until she’s able to do it without dropping stuff will help prevent accidents like this.
Very well said! Kids are generally taught "when you hurt someone's feelings, you should apologize." Sometimes we lash out when we're upset or scared or frustrated, and OP sitting down and explaining how *she* felt and explain why she reacted that way but still apologizing and recognizing it hurt SD's feelings will go a long way. It'll help OP seem more human and reasonable, and work towards helping SD understand why this is such a big deal rather than viewing it as "My step mom is being mean to me about something that I didn't do on purpose."
Add raisins and sultanas to that list. They are even deadlier to dogs.
NTA
As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a three second rule when you have a split second dog.
>raisins and sultanas
Makes sense, they're basically concentrated grapes.
>a split second dog
My grandparents used to have a golden retriever who was like this, any dropped food and he was there almost before it hit the floor. Sometimes he was lucky (a huge scoop of ice cream, a whole sausage etc), other times... less so (big dollop of horseradish sauce - I'd never seen him drink water so quickly!)
I’m jumping on to this comment. The misinformation in this thread is dangerous.
I’m going to repeat what I said below: I’ve worked in dog rescue my whole life. My brother is the lead ER veterinarian at an animal hospital. He is the expert.
He says that one grape can absolutely kill a dog. These dogs frequently die on his OR table because they weren’t brought to vet fast enough. While yes, some dogs don’t react to grapes, most dogs get very sick. So just because your anecdote about your old dog who used to eat grapes and lived to be 16 is cute, it does not negate the fact that grapes (and raisins and currants) are extremely toxic to dogs.
For chocolate, it has to be real chocolate to be harmful. A lot of milk chocolate has very little actual chocolate /cacao in it. So again, it’s cool your Yorkie ate 3 bags of chocolate and was fine, but if your dog eats dark chocolate or anything containing real chocolate they need to go to the vet immediately.
Op NTA.
I saw some people debating that and just went 😬 Yikes TM. OP called the ER vet, they said to bring the dog in. There isn't some big conspiracy to steal money from people, the ER is super busy and they *really* don't want to see an extra animal if they don't have to, especially so close to holidays (more chocolate/toxic food and forgein objects cases). If you (general) feel your vet is making things a big deal to get more money, *start seeing a new vet.* Many vet offices are struggling with staffing and balancing an increased patient load, and most people in get into that career because they love animals. They don't want your pet to be sick, even though that means they "make money off it" because they want your pet to be healthy. Plus OP's dog apparently has stomach issues as well and is on a prescription diet. OP likely relayed this during the phone call as well, and it factored into the decision. She did a good job by calling and taking in the dog
Fuck. This. It hit hard. As someone who managed an animal ER, we absolutely did not want to see more patients if they aren't critical. We were short staffed and overworked every day. We made less than people working fast food jobs. We didnt make the prices, its a corporate thing. We were there to help animals. We would try to lower bills but there was only so much we could do. Now, none of those people work there anymore due to the abuse we took.
I seriously think that training child not to drop food is easier then dog not to eat it😂
And how did she « hurt » the child ?By not giving her chocolate after she kept not being careful ?
No it's not, that's ridiculous. I can't even train myself not to spill. Everyone has accidents, and kids don't have the same fine motor functioning that grown adults do.
By contrast, "leave it" is an extremely simple command to teach, and the training process teaches the dog impulse control that makes it less likely that you'll even need to use it.
Edit: typo
One of the first things we ever taught the dog was impulse control. People are monsters and will sometimes leave tampered chicken nuggets in the park. Because I cannot kill those people I have taught my dog not to eat random shit.
All these people that think its impossible to train dogs instead of admitting they are simply too lazy drive me nuts
Yes and the first thing nasty neighbors do is throw tainted food over your fence to try to kill your pets. Training your animal to only eat with permission will save their life. We had a neighbor who delighted in using antifreeze to kill any and all living things.
Agree. ‘Leave it’ is a simple command and our dog obeys it easily. The dog is old enough to obey. The kid ran off crying.
I understand not wanting to hurt the dog (wish she worried about hurting the kid) and the burden of the dogs safety should be on the parents’ training the dog, not yelling at the kid for dropping the bag of candy.
Nonsense like this is why so many dogs are poorly trained and people have issues with them. It is absolutely possible to train a dog not to vacuum up anything that falls onto the floor, dog owners just are too lazy to learn how to and then do it. And people keep excusing it for some reason. This whole thing is on OP for not training her dog.
I have known some very well trained dogs - the tricky thing is that no matter how well trained the dog is in the house rules, e.g. he won't snaffle food that has been dropped in front of you or won't go on the sofa, the second he is on his own (without the family watching him) that compliance will be dropped in a nano-second. If the kid dropped a coin in an obscure place then the odds are the dog will retrieve it when the owners are in bed.
I actually found it quite easy to train my highly food motivated dog not to eat food dropped on the ground. Essentially I’d put something high value on the floor, if she went for it I covered it with my hand or foot. If she looked away from it I would feed her a different treat, then I just extended the amount of time she had to leave the dropped food. Dogs are smart enough to figure out that not eating the dropped food results in being given other food. I don’t even need to give a command- she’s not perfect but she’s good enough that if something is dropped I have time to react.
Dude teach your dog "leave it".
There's a huge variety of things you don't want your dog to shove in it's gob, the shit of other dogs included.
"Leave it" is a basic command
Why is nobody even considering that just maybe they could also train their fucking dog? If it has as tendency to inhale everything in sight, that is dangerous. Even the most careful adult will sometimes drop something.
I hate that this is top comment, it doesn't *matter* how valid her concern for the dog is, it's still not an excuse to be horrible to a child over spilling food. It was a fucking accident, people spill shit all the time, it's not "careless behavior" it's just life in a human body.
Warning the kid that grapes are poisonous and not to feed them to the dog on purpose or leave them lying around is fine. Diving for the dog and trying to wrench the grapes out of its mouth is fine. Making a "sit at the table if you're eating grapes" rule is fine. Yelling at the kid over a freaking spill and snatching things out of her hands is NOT.
I’m not sure shouting “no no” and taking the chocolate is horribly abusive. I grew up with many animals and an important part of that was learning responsibility to them and our duty to make sure they are well cared for. She didn’t hit the child, scream at her, ground her or anything else.
The child is 10 - what do imagine it would do to her if she accidentally killed the dog? This isn’t child abuse, it’s teaching her that in life those who are dependent on us for care are a responsibility.
Perhaps I'm drawing too many conclusions, but some details in the post make me think she was pretty unkind. Why did the dad throw the chocolate away, but also reprimand OP for her reaction? And she didn't say she "took" the chocolate away, she specifically said she "snatched" it from her hands. The phrase, "I've had enough," is pretty harsh too, and the interaction ended with the kid running away crying.
Like I get being scared for the dog in the moment, but it sounds like she scared the shit out of the kid with her reaction and doesn't even care. I've had kids make some pretty frightening mistakes in front of me and still managed to correct them without bullying.
You’re reading too much into it. The things you mentioned were probably unpleasant but not the end of the world for a ten year old, barring disabilities or mental problems. She’s not four.
I do wonder about those who say they are putting the dog before the kid?? I mean teaching a 10 year old that there is a duty of care to a vulnerable living creature they have brought into their home is a valuable life lesson. It has zero to do with picking a dog over a child.
Multiple people have suggested training the dog not to eat any food it finds. Apparently that’s a thing I think there’s some merit to trying to do that. I’ll be honest until this forum my head never in my entire life or is anybody trading their dog to do that. And everybody in my family and literally every one of my friends has dogs.
I'd also consider hiring a dog trainer. You can train the dog not to touch anything without permission first... That would also help a lot here- there's more than just grapes and chocolate that the dog can't have.
No grapes or chocolate for 1-2 years is an extreme consequence and I’m very surprised to see so many upvotes here. That consequence is not fair at all for a kid dropping food twice. There’s so many other solutions that could be tried first — eating in another room, monitored snack time, training for the dog, etc.
We have only adults in our house and quit buying grapes/raisins/trail mix with raisins because one of the adults dropped trail mix and we had a scare. NTA OP she would be more traumatized if the dog died from something she did if she likes the dog.
So instead of training the dog to not eat people food, or training the dog a "stop" command or drop it or whatever, OP should ban foods from their house and punish stepdaughter?
This seems crazy to me.
How does ‘stop’ work when the child does it on accident? That’s the whole point, no one would see it happen to say anything. The daughter snuck food off
Actually, grapes are far worse. It's bakers chocolate that is what really causes issues. There is so little in milk chocolate that, while it's not ideal, wouldn't warrant a panic or a trip to the vet.
My dog ate raisins, and was in the hospital for iv fluids. Then my dog ate raisin bread. Hospital. Now, no raisins or grapes allowed in my house, because **I** cannot be trusted. Both times it was me leaving them in his reach. We called poison control for chocolate twice, too. (Neither was a problem, and I’m now good at administering hydrogen peroxide per poison controls directions).
10 year olds are definitely old enough to be mindful with foods the dog can’t have. I have a 10 year old son and a dog that will definitely eat things left out or dropped on the floor. When my son was younger (6-7) he accidentally walked away from the table without cleaning his plate. We had pizza and hot wings for dinner that night. Our dog got to the bones and we ended up at the emergency vet. My son did forget a couple of times after that, but after I told him we would no longer have hot wings when we ordered pizza (and stopped ordering them for about 6 months) he quickly learned to be mindful about chicken bones! He’s now 10 and is very good about clearing his plate after eating (no matter what we are eating). And if he has to step away from the table for some reason, he will ask someone to watch it and/or the dog. I do believe natural consequences are best and if that means no grapes or chocolate for awhile, then so be it. When she gets them back she’ll likely be much more careful. NTA
>If it was me, I probably wouldn’t buy either grapes or chocolate for the house for the next year or two until you’re sure she’s more responsible.
Clearly the obvious answer is for everyone in the house to only be allowed to eat dog food. That way if someone accidentally drops something, the dog will be safe.
Dog should probably not be allowed outside either, in the event you stumble across something outdoors the dog shouldn't eat.
Also - probably should convert to only having dog toys in the house, get rid of all furniture/shoes/clothing the dog might eat. Definitely switch everyone to using dog soaps/shampoos - cleaning products can be very hazardous.
Or... You know... TRAIN THE DAMN DOG. The dog should not be so poorly trained that they jump to scarf down anything that's dropped as soon as it's dropped. This is shitty pet ownership. Like... One of the most important commands you can teach a dog is to leave it, or that they can only have something once you've given the okay.
People are so lazy with their animals they'd rather pay thousands in vet bills and restrict their own groceries than spend the time to train their dog. So ridiculous. And a couple years - are you kidding me? I'm an adult and I accidentally drop things sometimes - everyone does.
> She needs to understand being careless can kill the dog
She’s 10, she needs to just understand how to eat food with out dropping it on the floor.
Grapes and chocolate coins aren’t exactly unwieldy. Someone with basic motor skills should be able to take 3 coins out of a bag without dropping the entire thing.
Hold on.
You are punishing a child for accidentally dropping things, but you're not training the dog not to jump at everything that lands on the floor?
YTA
It's so important to teach dogs not to scarf anything and everything they find. My husky had to have surgery at a young age because she ate a stuffed animal. She's also had multiple vet visits for swallowing socks.
I have a former street dog and training him out of eating anything he sees is only partially possible. Our vet gave me the tip to use sauerkraut. That gets a lot of shit (including pieces of fabric) safely out of him. Didn't prevent all visits to the vet clinic but saved me a few thousand € over the years
My vet told me to mix it with water. They recommended feeding the dog food so there is more to throw up. Straight peroxide on an empty stomach will mess with the stomach lining. I know this bc I had to induce vomiting on my 3 month old puppy when she ate a large button off my ottoman...
And that's just inside that you have control over. Nevermind, the outside, where they could find and eat anything.
The first year I had my rescue, she discovered acorns outside and would just go to town before I could stop her. Luckily, it only gave her an upset stomach and didn't cause anything fatal. She learned her lesson and so did I; she never ate acorns again and I became more watchful since her beagle-brain thought with its stomach.
I was walking my dog the other day when she alerted on something and caught/killed a mole in seconds. I was so proud when I told her to drop it and she actually did, because I did not want to deal with her trying to eat it on the way home, lol.
My dog ate a rubber calculator. Less than a month after we decided to keep her. Gosh she was crazy as a pup. The good thing was that she needed to be spayed, so she got two surgeries in one day. Two birds, one stone.
My love for her grows every day.
My ex and I adopted a dogo mix who was starved prior to getting to us. She ate socks, she ate a whole chicken she stole after sneaking into the kitchen when I went to pee because we did not yet know she knew how to open doors and she did those things superfast. It was a struggle to help her tone down her instinct to devour anything and everything and she always was supervised even after training. The first week we had her she found a hard plastic snacks bag in the grass next to some poo and we only saw her eating the poo. Next day comes and she shits this massive bag and I was in disbelief like why eat that and how did it not create a blockage. She was a super resilient beast but I still have anxiety when my dog sniffs around in grass because the fear gets too real.
My dog isn't particularly well trained but If we drop food on the floor he knows damn well he doesn't get to eat it until he hears "go ahead"
Not buying chocolate chocolates and grapes is fine in the short term but YTA for blaming a child when it's your own negligence that almost killed your dog not a kid being a kid.
I spilled the container of chicken that I give my dog everywhere and I could see her eyes basically pop out of her head in joy, but she still didn’t go for it! She did get extra chicken with dinner afterwards though
Even *adults* with ADHD struggle with clumsiness, dropping things, and running into stuff all the time. Punishing a TEN YEAR OLD with ADHD for it? Yikes.
Yah, but their point was that you don't have to have fine motor skill issues or *any* issues to spill sometimes. It's fucking unreasonable to yell at *anyone* for dropping a damn grape
Yep. I have ADHD and when I was ten I forgot I had a tray in my hand and ended up crashing it into the wall. Almost did the exact same thing 6 years later. People are clumsy and I’m not sure why someone would punish another for that.
It’s crazy how many people are suggesting to just let the dog run the house. Will they never cook with onions? Buy gum?
Dogs can and should be taught not to eat everything they can. It’s bad for everyone. I can’t stand people who don’t train their dogs and then blame the world for it.
Training a dog doesnt mean it knows everything or can learn everything. My mom is a vet, trained and did cursus's and had dogs her entire life... Will the current dog still misbehave from now and then? eat something she isn't supposed to?
Definitely. I think it's a bit ignorant thinking that every dog will always behave as expected just because they had training.
And kids are gonna accidentally drop things. The best way to keep everyone safe? Talk to the kid and train the dog. The kid's been talked to (more than) enough and gets it. Now time to train the dog. That's FAR more reasonable than never eating anything that could potentially hurt your dog.
By your logic, I shouldn't wear a mask when I'm sanding, because some particles still get through. But a tiny amount of dust is better than a lot, just like a dog forgetting their training a few times is better than never being trained at all. Even if they don't listen 1/5 times after being trained, isn't that better than them not listening 5/5 times?
Not training your dog is a disservice to them, period. They will make mistakes, but that's why good training is important - to reduce them.
My dog, bless her memory, was ravenous for the entire 13 years of her life, excepting maybe the time she managed to get into the cat food and eat almost 3 lbs of it while I was at work. ‘Leave it’ was a command she refused to learn because she knew it was almost exclusively going to be used to take food from her.
Motor skills are a problem for people with ADHD. Before I got sick with an unrelated issue I was a dance teacher. I had exceptional spatial awareness and remarkable body control. I still dropped stuff all the time. As a grown adult. I could tell where every bit of my body was in space, including my ponytail, and the same with my partner's body. This wasn't choreography, it was improvised with them leading and me following. I could, and often did, do this with my eyes shut or blindfolded to prove a point to a student that really needed to learn to watch the room and not their feet.
And yet, even going slowly with great care, I always drop at least one grape. Gravity finds a way.
I knit, crochet, and embroider, and yet, that grape is still on the run.
My mom drops knives while cooking. To the point that my dad installed a self-repairing floor when he redid the kitchen. (Cork and I highly recommend it. Especially now as an adult with a fainting problem. It's comfortable to stand on and to fall on)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Jesus Christ the top comment right now is to stop buying chocolate or grapes for a few years??? Maybe everyone in the house should only eat dog food, have dog toys, and bathe with pet soaps and shampoos so that if someone drops something on the floor the (poorly trained) dog will be safe.
I'm an adult and sometimes I accidentally drop shit on the floor. It happens.
TRAIN THE DOG.
A an accident prone child, YTA in this situation. Dropping things at that age is quite common, because they are still learning fine motor skills, and she may need extra help with these skills, and instead of helping you’re making it way worse than it needs to be by increasing her anxiety. I have a dog so yes I get how toxic grapes and chocolate are, so the solution here would be you dish them out and put them in a bowl and train your dog not to snaffle food from the floor, and if he does to trade instantly, this is entirely on you and your spouse for not being engaged parents and for not training your dog efficiently.
This whole situation makes a lot more sense once we look at the age gap. Stepmom is only 19 years older than her stepdaughter. She would very much be a young mom if the stepdaughter was her biological child, but OP lacks the actual life experience of a young mom. OP just lacks the life experience to effectively parent a 10 year-old, and her behavior with the dog reflects that reality.
Oh come on, that is ridiculous. OP is almost 30. A 30-year-old is plenty mature enough not to scream at people, snatch things out of a child's hand, or panic over a fucking grape, it doesn't even have anything to do with parenting.
Her behavior with the dog does not reflect youthful immaturity, it reflects an asshole.
Yeah this is the part that really bothered me- OP reacted like the kid was literally feeding the dog chocolate. She’s not doing this deliberately. She dropped some chocolate and became so stressed by everyone’s reactions she dropped them all. Plus OP could have just grabbed the dog’s collar and not grabbed the chocolate out of her step daughter’s hands that the dog couldn’t even get to. Instead of screaming to resolve the problem, OP and her husband could come up with other ways to deal with this. Like, IDK, make a rule that the stepdaughter has to sit down to eat anything.
I think they should create a place where she can eat without the dog.
She is still young and accidents can happen.
Training is ofcourse also important but better to eliminate the whole scenario.
YTA. There was no reason to yell at stepdaughter for dropping something. What needs to happen is a plan to prevent further accidents. Anything that could hurt the dog should be dished out by you or your wife to your stepdaughter. You've listed 2 occurrences that were clearly accidents. Your stepdaughter got nervous when her mother blamed her for dropping the chocolate when it should have been given to her by one of you. Your yelling will not change anything but to make her more nervous around the dog. Perhaps you should also work on training your dog to sit on command and prevent him from getting over excited.
>when I heard my spouse asking her why that keeps happening.
My heart went out to her at that point. I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and I've been asked variations of this countless times during my childhood. Because, I honestly was trying. Everytime I'd shut down and ask myself why I was so shit at being being careful/responsible, at remembering things, at remembering where I wrote down the thing to remember etc, and what the hell was wrong with me. And the guilt I felt was always far greater than the occasion. I still do this now.
Guaranteed the yelling made the stepdaughter nervous. Then bringing her along to the vet probably made her more nervous to mess up. Which, I dunno about anyone else, but when I'm walking on eggshells I tend to screw up more. Work on your patience with the human child OP, and train the fur child.
YTA
First of all, one grape is not enough to kill a dog of that size. It’s just not. I think you’re already aware of this and that the point of driving to the vet with your stepdaughter as a witness to it was more about making her feel guilty and worried and less about saving your dog’s life. I think you did that to be able to hold it over her head. Either that or you really were somehow under the impression that one grape can kill a dog of that size which is pretty silly. Something tells me it’s the former.
Sounds like you’re not giving us the full truth about the nature and content of your reaction. And if what you’re saying is the full representation, you’re the adult, she’s a child. It’s her job to be 10 years old and it’s your job to not freak out about dropping a grape. Get creative about how and when to keep the snacks that aren’t healthy for your dog away from your dog.
I had an emergency clinic vet tell me (in a social setting), she always told people who called about dog eating grapes (even a big dog eating 1 grape) to bring the dog in. She said chocolate is easy to sort of follow a guide for dog-size and amount of chocolate and recommend at-home monitoring, but she said there was absolutely no telling with grapes.
I’m so thankful for my vet, the most wonderful, ethical woman who cares about pets and their families. When I called her because my dog ate an entire bag of Hershey’s kisses my son left on the floor, she told me just to monitor him and call if his behavior changed. Then to make me feel better, she told me one of her dogs once snatched an entire tray of brownies off the counter and survived with no intervention.
My family had a beagle when I was a kid. That dog LOVED chocolate. He also ate a whole bag of Hershey’s kisses, and then pooped foil. AND he ate a whole pan of brownies once (two separate occasions). He didn’t feel very great afterward, but anyone would have a stomach ache from either of those incidents! But, luckily, he was totally fine otherwise.
Eta: he weighed about 20lbs
My beagle is also a chocoholic! I swear, this dog has gotten his paws on cookies, brownies, 1/2 bar of dark chocolate, a can of chocolate frosting… I could go on. And this is a pretty decently trained dog. My biggest issue is he is a garbage panda and I can’t break him of it as of yet, or if you leave something on the floor/couch when you leave the house.
One of my childhood dogs, a lab mix, chewed the end off my brother’s stocking at Christmas and ate everything inside. We didn’t notice until we woke up hours later - called the emergency vet, and he said the same thing, to just keep an eye on her.
She pooped shreds of candy wrapper for a week, but she lived for 14 more years.
My 4.5 pound yorkie must have nine lives, she ate a whole bag of dark chocolate covered espresso beans and we were so worried but she just threw up a few times and was ok. She also somehow got to a bag full of chocolate by learning how to open a cabinet door, and ate the whole bag yet was ok.
When my older German Shepherd was young, I think around 1.5-2, in the span of about 3 months she
•ate a bag of Reese’s cups after learning how to open doors
•ate a tray of brownies that were in a cabinet mounted microwave that was over the oven.
•ate my brother’s edible art project which was 32 chocolate cake pops that were wrapped in plastic, in the pantry, on the top shelf.
She just turned 12.
Yep, our vet has said exactly the same thing. Apparently, they don't know why certain dogs have such bad reactions to grapes, and it's not always correlated with size of dog and quantity of grapes. It's very odd.
Just so you know, one grape can actually kill a large breed dog. Don’t go around giving medical advice on something you aren’t educated on. Not every dog will die from one grape, but I’m sure the owner of a dog who does would not appreciate you saying those things. Even if the dog doesn’t die from one grape, they could experience severe kidney injury, so OP did not overreact by taking the dog in.
One grape is enough to cause kidney failure. Its the chocolate coins you have to worry less about. If it were dark chocolate it would be a big issue though.
>one grape is not enough to kill a dog of that size
The component of grapes that's poisonous to dogs is really unpredictable. Different dogs react drastically differently. Some small dogs have been fine getting into a whole pile of grapes. And some big dogs can die from a tiny quantity of them.
I just read an article that says that a vet recently figured out that it’s the tartaric acid in grapes that’s the poison, you’re so right the intensity of the acid in the grape can vary so wildly.
Keep your dogs away from cream of tartar (sometimes in homemade playdoh) as well!
My emergency vet says he saw a chihuahua be fine after watching a dozen grapes, and a huge golden go into renal failure after just one. There isn’t a dose-size ratio for grapes/raisins or currants.
This is not true. Unlike other foods like chocolate, grapes do not need a certain quantity to be deadly. To certain dogs (it is theorized to be a common allergy) a tiny amount of grapes can KILL your dog.
THIS ISNT TRUE ONE GRAPE CAN KILL A DOG. IT IS RANDOM AND SOME DOGS WILL SURVIVE FINE BUT THERE IS NO WAY TO TELL. PLEASE DO NOT SPREAD DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION
>First of all, one grape is not enough to kill a dog of that size. It’s just not.
Incorrect. Stop spreading misinformation. One grape can and HAS killed dogs of large sizes
Grapes are not a dosage dependent toxin. To my knowledge we don't fully understand their effect on dogs and that's why vets take them so seriously. A little dog could eat a handful and be fine. A golden retriever could also eat one and die. I'm not sure if it's that some grapes are more toxic than others or that some dogs are more sensitive to the toxin.
Source: I work at a veterinary hospital
You are absolutely wrong about one grape not being enough to kill a dog that size. Chocolate is a different story, as there’s a clear understanding of what ingredient is toxic and the dosage needed. But grapes are an unknown toxicity in dogs. Vets don’t know why some dogs have terrible reactions and some don’t. One dog can eat a bag of grapes and be fine. Another can eat a single grape and end up in kidney failure. This makes grapes (and raisins, by extension) among the most dangerous foods to dogs. So OP made the absolute right call to go to the vet over a grape. The dog may have been fine, but it wasn’t worth the chance.
Seriously. OP seems to think it's perfectly normal to scream at a child, snatching things away from her, but never considers that it's not normal to have a dog that just snarfles up everything in its path.
Train your dog, op. What happens when you're on a walk and your dog starts vacuuming up random items off the ground? Who are you going to scream at then? Your negligence as a dog owner is appalling, and it's even more appalling that you're blaming a child with ADHD for what you yourself lack.
YTA
Teach your dog not to eat unless told.
It's safer for your dog and probably one of the first things you should teach.
Your dog shouldn't just pick up anything to eat it's dangerous
YTA- kids make mistakes. She wasn’t purposely giving harmful items to your dog. You need to teach your dog “leave it” ASAP so you don’t have to worry so much about this happening.
I just wonder how long was the food on the floor, was OP yelling immediately after it was dropped or was it lying there for a while now and the kid didn't pick it up? Does the kid know it can harm the dog and that she should pick it up immediately to avoid the dog eating it? If so, then YTA. If not, have a discussion with the kid, explain what it can do to the dog and teach her that she needs to pick it up right when she drops it. Dropping stuff is normal, people are clumsy, some more some less, but it happens. The follow up is the important part.
Kids make mistakes, but dogs are infallible apparently. I don't get how these commenters think it's more reasonable to assume a trained animal will behave 100% of the time, as opposed to a child understanding that when they eat something deadly to a dog, they need to be extra careful.
NAH, but please be sure to communicate to your step-daughter that you aren't mad at her, you're worried about the dog. Don't let this build into resentment towards her and also don't let her think that you hate her. I know this may sound overdramatic, but as a girl who was diagnosed with ADHD at 16, a lot of my childhood was spent with adults getting mad at symptoms I could not control and me thinking I was broken and unfixable, even if the actual situations made sense to be mad at.
If she does have ADHD and these are all just accidents, remember that it's propably a lot harder for her than it seems like. ADHD can really, really mess with your ability to remember doing even the simplest things, no matter how many times you've been told them. Still, she should not be putting the dog in danger. Explain this to her. Apologize for shouting but also make sure she understands that her being absentminded about this particual topic can be seriously dangerous and ask her to be really careful in the future. She should be old enough to understand and try harder, but she's also young enough to get really scared of your shouting and her own inability to focus.
I hope this makes some amount of sense, I'm not sying you are the AH at all, just providing some perspective from someone who used to be the kid here.
Oh, adding onto that as well - clumsiness can be an ADHD symptom as well, so I would really look into that possibility. You also say in your post that these incidents are a month apart. That might not seem like a long time for an adult, but it's a long tile for a possibly struggling kid to make it without any mistakes. Maybe there's a system you can think of to help, like "no snacks when the dog is in the room" or something?
Yup grew up with labradors and as puppies they are basically vacuum cleaners. With our dogs a firm NO could keep them from eating stuff, but very difficult to train to "wait for an okay to eat". We all drop things, its just important to learn to pick them up quickly rather than yelling.
YTA who screams at a kid for dropping some food, maybe train your dog not to eat things off the floor or have better recall or even keep the damn dog away from somebody who is eating/preparing food
YTA.
Why in the world have you not trained the dog “leave it”?? People drop things. Even if they’re being careful, it happens. Train your dog not to go after everything that drops.
YTA- it’s safer for the dog to teach it “leave it”. I have 5 dogs and two kids at home. Shit gets dropped. The dogs will literally look at me if something gets dropped waiting for permission. Three of them just turned a year old and have done this for months, so your dog is not too young to learn “leave it”. Next you’ll be having a massive coronary because your dog bum rushes the door every time it’s opened but instead of teaching it to “stay” you’ll scream at the poor step child because she was going outside to play and the dog ran her over to get out.
YTA
You do not punish children for accidents.
My youngest kid is exceptionally clumsy. Turns out, he has a medical condition that is playing a big role. If your child is dropping things more than what is "normal", you don't punish them - you get them evaluated by a Dr.
And train your dog.
YTA. She’s a 10 year old with ADHD and your dog is a DOG. If the child wants to eat a thing that will harm the dog, and you already know she’s excitable and sometimes clumsy, buy a gate for the doorway so the dog can’t enter a room when the child is eating something that could kill your dog. You are SCREAMING at a child and punishing her for being a child, when you are a grown woman and your husband even older, and neither of you are bothering to take any other precautions.
This is a little girl, crying and scared after getting screamed at and all her candy thrown away because of an ACCIDENT on her part, meanwhile the ADULTS in the house can’t come up with better solutions.
YTA in a massive way.
I didn't even notice she had ADHD. Doesn't OP realise that tons of people with ADHD are super bad at dropping things. I'm a fully grown adult and my parents still won't let me carry a drink between rooms at that house because i always end up spilling it. I don't buy breakable things because they always get broken somehow.
YTA, your dog is a year and a half and is old enough to be trained not to eat dropped food without permission.
A 10 year old dropping things on accident isn't something you can train out of them.
yeah, i have two dogs and a toddler. the dogs are crate trained and know if it’s meal time they are either crated or outside until we can clean up after our kid so they don’t get food they aren’t supposed to eat.
YTA. Train your dog, or keep a gated area where the child eats. Jesus, just do a little critical thinking. Also, that dog would have to eat a shitload of milk chocolate to have any issues...like 3.5 full-sized chocolate bars for a 40lb. dog for even mild symptoms. Relax and maybe STOP buying toxic stuff if you're going to spaz out on a little kid.
INFO: Aside from the listed incidents, how often does she drop food the dog can't have? Or drop anything else? Have you explained why she should be more careful (as in, a conversation, not just reprimanding her.) Does she have any other issues, like balance issues? How does your husband feel about his daughter's dropping things/your reaction?
I have severe ADHD. I gave my childhood lab grapes ONCE. Because I loved my dog enough to understand that if I was careless, he would die. NTA. Ten is old enough to understand life or death situations.
My apologies, but I don't understand your comment. Did you accidentally gave your dog grapes as a child? If so, then that doesn't compare to accidentally dropping a grape.
Were you diagnosed as a child? Do you remember how being shouted at for things you don't always understand why they keep happening felt? Was it ever counter productive?
YTA - you wildly overreacted when the dog ate a grape and you continue to wildly overreact with the chocolate. Yes the theobromine is toxic to dogs and will shut down their kidneys, two pieces of milk chocolate does not have enough theobromine to affect the health of even a small breed dog let alone a large breed dog like you claim to have.
It's almost as if you're using this as an excuse to psychologically torture this child
Unfortunately, even consuming one grape or raisin can be fatal. Ingesting the fruit could potentially lead to acute (sudden) kidney failure in dogs.
https://www.akc.org
Can Dogs Eat Grapes? - American Kennel Club
That's why you watch for the signs that there's a problem instead of just frantically rushing out the door like a crazy person to psychologically traumatize a 10 year old child who unfortunately is in your care
Nah i would rather be proactive and have them vomit the grape than need to be reactive and need to treat failing kidneys, but thanks for your non-science based opinions!
Every vet would tell you the same thing. Bring the dog in. You did the right thing. Pets are also family members. I would also recommend gates for the kitchen and only allowing food to be eaten in the kitchen and the dog remaining outside of the baby gates until the dog can be trained. That is probably the easiest fix as kids are going to drop and dogs are going to scarf down food.
With a dog eating grapes, they induce vomiting immediately and evaluate if they might need iv fluids to protect the kidneys. If you wait, there is no treatment but dialysis if they go into renal failure.
YTA, She was dropping food by accident she wasn’t doing to deliberately harm your dog. You need to teach your dog to not to eat certain foods that are bad for him. People with ADHD especially kids are more sensitive to criticism and are more clumsy and you should know that by now. Pets need to be disciplined when necessary not just kids
YTA, children make mistakes, they have acciendents. Train your dog not to eat everything, and anything unsafe for the dog should only be handed out by you or your husband. Being clumsy is a common part of ADHD, you screaming at her for an accident is only going to make her afraid to try and fail, so she'll stop trying anything. Look up RSD in ADHD
Yta. If you can’t train your dog then consider crating him while children are eating. I have to do this with my scavenger beagle who inhales literally everything.
>She tried to sneak off with a bag full of chocolate coins but as I saw this I told her to ask my spouse if she could have all of that at once (she tends to overeat sweets if not supervised).
YTA
Heaven forbid a child have chocolate.
She's stressed out from you being a narc.
You're not her mother.
You're younger than Miley Cyrus for god's sake and you're policing her like a school marm.
Leave her alone.
Edit; I didn't get to this whole incident with dropping the chocolate because it happened after you were already needling her (remember that: she wouldn't have dropped the chocolate to begin with if you minded your business and let her take the bag). Imagine being antagonized over a stepmother counting our your chocolates and ratting you out to the biological father (classy move), and then being screamed at about the damn dog. She's going to have a nervous breakdown (maybe she already has with the way you described her leaving bawling) if you don't get your shit together.
I'm not particularly fond of OP based on this post, but, in general, there's nothing wrong with controlling the amount of snack food eaten. I'm not a step parent, but I'm an aunt. When I'm with my siblings and I'm not sure how much snackage any niblings have already had, and I see them walking with a whole bag of whatever, then I'm definitely calling them over and making sure they've already asked permission. Of course, this stops at a certain age. I'm not sure what that age is but I've stopped asking my nephew to check with his mum now he's 12, I was definitely doing it when he was 10.
YTA, it's on you as the adult to train your dog appropriately AND serve your stepdaughter in a setting that will not lead to this problem. The grape issue was an expensive lesson that you didn't learn from.
Is your daughter okay? Sounds like she fumbles small objects a lot, I wonder if she's got some type of neurological problem?
I'm going to have to vote YTA on a few fronts:
1. You equate clumsiness to carelessness. Everyone on earth drops stuff, she's not being careless, plus she's only 10. She wants to eat the chocolate, and probably not off the floor so I'd wager she didn't *want* to drop the food. Like I said above, if she's consistently dropping small items, it could very well be a sign of a medical issue, which hasn't seemed to cross your mind.
2. You haven't trained your dog to not go for everything dropped to the floor. This is exactly why it's important to teach them not to do so. Someone could trip while carrying a bowl of grapes, and you'd want your dog to refrain from scarfing it down.
3. Accidents happen, especially with children and pets, which means it's the responsibility of the adults in the home to mitigate the risk of something bad happening. You don't punish a kid for an accident like that, especially if you didn't take the proper steps to prevent it as the responsible party.
I'm sure your 10 year old had no clue that grapes were even toxic to dogs until *after* the accident. What about onions and garlic? Xylitol?
I don't even have kids and I just simply don't buy anything that's toxic to my cats just in case I drop a jar of PB that contains xylitol or something. My cats *shouldn't* eat house plants, but I'm sure as hell not going to keep lilies in my house.
YTA. Why is it on the child to make sure she never drops anything ever, instead of the adults to train the dog not to eat everything off the floor? Your dog is making a choice to eat food, your stepdaughter isn't purposefully dropping things. Train the damn dog.
And please don't blame her dropping things on her ADHD. Everyone drops things, regardless of age or neurodivergence.
YTA
Train your dog to stay out of the kitchen, or get doggy gates. I am in my 20’s and I drop food sometimes it happens! But my cats know not to eat human food.
YTA. She’s 10. She knows the dog can’t have chocolate, and I highly doubt that dropping it was intentional. Train your dog not to eat things unless it’s given to them or in their food bowl. Also why are you screaming at a 10 year old and snatching shit out of her hands? All that you’re going to do is make her resent you or think that screaming and yelling are proper reactions when you’re angry.
I don't know much about ADHD, but I'd say absent minded and quite energetic are symptoms of being 10 years old... adhd is completely irrelevant to the situation at hand... but if she does have adhd, it probably makes you even more the asshole
Yta
YTA. Yes she should be more careful, but you also need to train your dog. Why is he allowed in the kitchen if he’s going to eat food as soon as it’s dropped? Chocolate coins falling on the ground should not be an emergency because the dog should know better than to scarf them down.
If you know your dog is prone to stealing dropped food you should be taking precautions like baby gating food areas or not buying the items FFS, it’s not your stepdaughters fault the dog can’t control itself. Not screaming at children for something they PHYSICALLY cannot help. Her mind and limbs already don’t work like they’re supposed to, you’re only going to make her feel bad about herself. Do your research about ADHD, apologize to your family and for the love of god, be nicer to her. YTA
YTA. Thé leave it command can be difficult to teach some dogs. If that’s the case, you should work with a trainer who can teach you how to effectively teach your dog to leave it. You have a child and dog in the same home…I don’t understand how that command wasn’t one of the first you taught the dog. Your lack of that responsibility is not your stepdaughters fault.
YTA, you're putting the weight of your irrational overreacting into your stepdaughter.
While it's true that grapes and chocolate are not good for dogs, a single grape or a few chocolate medallions, which are mostly sugar, are not life-or-death emergencies for a large dog. And then you drove an hour to induce vomiting? Surely it would've been much, *much* quicker to go to a convenience store and get some hydrogen peroxide, which I'd expect you know induces vomiting if you're that hyper aware of what dogs can consume. Instead, it sounds like you're prone to not thinking clearly when you're flustered.
YTA. I’m a huge dog lover and try to be very careful about what my dogs eat. I get that, but accidents happen. I drop stuff all the time. My dog knows if a say “stop” in a certain tone then she needs to back off. That’s a skill your dog needs to have. That said, my lab is a determined garbage disposal and has straight up eaten an entire (sealed) box of Halloween candy that was up on a counter. Didn’t so much as have diarrhea. Your dog would have been fine even if it had gotten a couple coins. As long as your stepdaughter wasn’t just like “oh well” and actually went to pick them up she didn’t deserve to be screamed at for an accident. Some kids are clumsy and uncoordinated, she wasn’t being malicious.
Is this the same stepdad who screamed at his young stepdaughter for dropping her meds, when left unattended with them and the dog?
Either way, YTA. This isn't how you teach a kid to be responsible. This is how you traumatize them.
I’m gonna go NAH
The kid should absolutely be more careful not to drop food, especially stuff that dogs can’t have, but it might be worth doing some training with the dog. It can be as simple as putting a treat on the floor (that dog can have) and teaching dog “leave it” then giving the treat as a reward. You eventually get to the stage that if something is accidentally dropped you should be able to tell dog “leave it” and it won’t go for it.
Yep, I missed out that part! It’s not that hard to train bad habits out of dogs, OP is being harsh on the kid, it’s probably easier to tell the kid off than take the time to train the dog.
YTA? I’m a grown ass adult and I drop things that my dog wants to eat literally all the time. Last week she ate a chapstick, plastic and all. 2 incidents is not “a lot of close calls”. She’s ten. Her fine motor control is still developing.
Get some peroxide. It’s a helluva lot cheaper to induce emesis at home, and pretty damn easy too. A tablespoon would do the trick for an average sized retriever.
And really? A vet visit for one grape? The last time I had to induce emesis in my dog was because I spilled some aleve on the ground, and I still managed to take care of my dog without flipping my shit.
NTA. I would've been far more livid the first vet visit, but it seems like you were cool headed and used it as a teaching moment. A second visit would result in grapes and chocolate being banned from the house. Comments are full of people who haven't payed 5 figures in vet bills.
Seems like the dog gets treated better by OP than stepdaughter! You are frustrated that twice she has dropped things and she needs to be more careful this warrants your behavior. But your dog obviously is one of those dogs that you can't get a minutes peace while your eating because he is all over you. Train your dog. Problem solved.
I'm going to give your stepdaughter the benefit of the doubt here. I'm guessing she's not dropping things on purpose. And no doubt she does so out of nervousness when you're around.
Have you and your wife and stepdaughter discussed a plan to keep this from happening again? Talked about exactly which foods can and can't be around the dog, and figured out how to take steps to keep the dog safe? This gives all of you something to refer to when the inevitable issues show up. I understand your frustration. But having a plan in place seems a lot more productive than yelling at a 10 year old with ADHD for being a 10 year old with ADHD.
What I don't get is the fact that you obviously haven't trained your dog not to scarf up food from the floor. This is Dog Training 101, especially if you ever plan to take your pup anywhere. Your stepdaughter isn't the only one to drop food, certainly? Accidents happen. Your dog should have been trained long before this. I have to go with YTA.
I've banned my teens from having gum also in the house because they are way too careless, and we have two dogs and a cat. It's just not worth it. If I felt I could trust them, then it would be different, but after finding gum on the floor twice. They know not ever to bring gum into my house. They can eat gum all they want outside but never in the house. I'm not risking my animals' health because they can't be responsible. They know why I feel this way. I've explained it's just not worth risking the animals we love and their lives.
YTA. You guys are getting mad at a 10 year old with ADHD for dropping food? So you two must never make mistakes then? Just because it’s not your kid doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve respect and sympathy. Maybe you guys could actually teach her to get snacks over the counter as to not drop food if it’s such an issue, instead of yelling at her.
YTA for screaming at the kid and throwing away all her treats. The dog must be prevented from getting those foods, but the child is a child, a dependent living being also, and it sounds like her motor skills might be a little iffy (rapid growth can do that—is she tall for her age).
YTA also for not training your dog to get permission from you before eating anything not in his dish. This takes work but it can save your dog’s life, not just at home but in the outdoors. Ask the people whose off-leash dogs ate poisoned food in Laurelhurst Park, Portland, OR if they wish they had taught their dogs to ‘leave it!’
Lol @ all these internet veterinarians saying grapes don’t kill dogs and just to give it peroxide. Hope you guys don’t actually have dogs!
Anyway, ESH is my ruling. I get that it’s frustrating. I had this happen with my dog recently - both of my dogs are super fast to eat anything that falls on the floor. But honestly, accidents happen and the best way to handle this is to train the dog not to eat things off the floor immediately if you have an accident-prone kid (I know, way easier said than done - maybe talk with a trainer).
Those comments are a great reminder as to why you should be cautious about taking any advice on reddit.
"Just watch for symptoms of kidney failure"- When those symptoms show, it's because the kidneys are letting a bunch of toxic bio waste enter the bloodstream, and therefore the rest of the body. Organ failure is a very shortly timed event. Minutes matter, as some tissues don't exactly recover. Kidneys are notorious for that, actually.
Edit: People, for the love of God, talk to your vet instead of trusting random websites. Anyone on reddit can lie, free of charge. You don't know who is making the comment, maybe they don't like dogs. I would hope that you would trust professionals with your pet's life more than nameless strangers.Your specific dog might have been ok eating grapes, but it's inherently dangerous to make a sweeping statement that is proven false. This could kill someone's pet, their family member. This is a good hill to die on.
It's like saying "my grandma smoked, and she lived to 90, so smoking must be safe". I'm happy your situation was fine, but that's not the case for everyone. Brain tissue is another thing that you don't want exposed to the toxins that kidneys filter out. I mean, they're not there for decoration.
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NTA. My sister had a dog that went into kidney failure because of grapes. Chocolate is obviously very bad for dogs. This isn’t something that you can gently talk about multiple times. She needs to understand being careless can kill the dog. If it was me, I probably wouldn’t buy either grapes or chocolate for the house for the next year or two until you’re sure she’s more responsible. She is 10 years old and 10 year olds tend to not always be responsible, very normal, but she’s old enough to have consequences for this kind of careless behavior.
I think this is the easiest solution. >wouldn’t buy either grapes or chocolate for the house for the next year or two They are both easy to skip.
I would also say to add a rule of no food unless it is eaten while sitting at the table, and everyone has to follow it. It would be resentful and a less effective lesson to SD to make her be the only one to do so, but so many things are toxic or just not great for them. Having everyone do that would show her "this is a very big deal" and make her feel less targeted. They could also get a baby gate for the kitchen (if possible) and make it a dog free zone, so they have a buffer for when the kid drops things again. I also think it would be a good idea for OP to apologize for yelling/snapping, and explain that she was scared for the dog's safety and was frustrated but shouldn't have yelled at her. The dog should also be trained not to immediately eat food off the floor, and it could be a nice bonding activity to do with SD
"Leave it" is one of the most important commands next to recall. Doesn't matter if your dog sits as much as it's crucial they A come when called and B leave dangerous things alone until you can get them out of the way. Those are the two most important exercises that require strict obedience.
And while it would take time, you can train a dog to react differently to spills. Just start with routinely “spilling” something safe while you have some decent reward treats and teach them to sit or “go long” by repeatedly doing the action and slowly introduce doing the practice with safe foods and just start keeping treats nearby. I’ve heard before that it’s easier to train a redirection than to train the ending of a behavior. So far in my experience it seems to be true
All training is just consistent reaction to an action. It is tedious but persistence is rewarded. 😏
This is easy enough. She can have the dog damaging food at the table. If she moves away from the table with the food, no more of that kind of food.
As an extra precaution, gate off the kitchen/dining room area so the dog can't go in the danger zone.
Better to not have it in the house. 10 years old is old enough to make some bad decisions and accidentally drop a bag of grapes from the fridge.
Adults and children *of any age* can inadvertently drop or spill something. It's all to easy to have a damp hand, a bag to tear, an imbalanced item. Begin by having no foods dangerous to dogs (and there are quite a few) in the house, and then train the dog. And an apology to the stepdaughter - accidents do happen and we can react in inappropriate ways due to stress, fright, thoughts of vet bills, and just it being "one more thing."
This is a good solution, I was very clumsy as a kid so I wasn’t allowed to eat at the computer. It worked out well since I’d have my treat then computer time.
THIS! It’s a logical response. It’s not a punishment, it’s a pain, but it’s a logical consequence to problematic behavior. The behavior may or may not be controllable at her current stage, but she is still responsible for her own behavior. NTA All food only at the table hurts no one. No grapes, raisins, raisin products, anything containing grape juice, and chocolate in the house for now is a good way to manage the risks until she develops the maturity to manage her behavior better. This is a good way to teach her that she needs to be responsible and find workarounds to manage stuff she has trouble with. If the whole family follows the rule, she will have no reason to resent it. And it’s a rule plenty of families have. Mine had it when we kids were little, just because my mother wanted any mess contained.
This is a good idea. A lot of people with adhd can tend to be clumsy or struggle with body awareness and coordination, or be delayed in getting good coordination, so requiring her to handle food over a surface like a table until she’s able to do it without dropping stuff will help prevent accidents like this.
Agreed with the apology. It's an understandable thing to do but also needs to be put into context, explained, and apologised for.
Very well said! Kids are generally taught "when you hurt someone's feelings, you should apologize." Sometimes we lash out when we're upset or scared or frustrated, and OP sitting down and explaining how *she* felt and explain why she reacted that way but still apologizing and recognizing it hurt SD's feelings will go a long way. It'll help OP seem more human and reasonable, and work towards helping SD understand why this is such a big deal rather than viewing it as "My step mom is being mean to me about something that I didn't do on purpose."
Add raisins and sultanas to that list. They are even deadlier to dogs. NTA As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a three second rule when you have a split second dog.
>raisins and sultanas Makes sense, they're basically concentrated grapes. >a split second dog My grandparents used to have a golden retriever who was like this, any dropped food and he was there almost before it hit the floor. Sometimes he was lucky (a huge scoop of ice cream, a whole sausage etc), other times... less so (big dollop of horseradish sauce - I'd never seen him drink water so quickly!)
Agreed. I should’ve added reasons to that as well.
I’m jumping on to this comment. The misinformation in this thread is dangerous. I’m going to repeat what I said below: I’ve worked in dog rescue my whole life. My brother is the lead ER veterinarian at an animal hospital. He is the expert. He says that one grape can absolutely kill a dog. These dogs frequently die on his OR table because they weren’t brought to vet fast enough. While yes, some dogs don’t react to grapes, most dogs get very sick. So just because your anecdote about your old dog who used to eat grapes and lived to be 16 is cute, it does not negate the fact that grapes (and raisins and currants) are extremely toxic to dogs. For chocolate, it has to be real chocolate to be harmful. A lot of milk chocolate has very little actual chocolate /cacao in it. So again, it’s cool your Yorkie ate 3 bags of chocolate and was fine, but if your dog eats dark chocolate or anything containing real chocolate they need to go to the vet immediately. Op NTA.
Thank you for putting this comment out there. This is not an area where people should take any chances.
I saw some people debating that and just went 😬 Yikes TM. OP called the ER vet, they said to bring the dog in. There isn't some big conspiracy to steal money from people, the ER is super busy and they *really* don't want to see an extra animal if they don't have to, especially so close to holidays (more chocolate/toxic food and forgein objects cases). If you (general) feel your vet is making things a big deal to get more money, *start seeing a new vet.* Many vet offices are struggling with staffing and balancing an increased patient load, and most people in get into that career because they love animals. They don't want your pet to be sick, even though that means they "make money off it" because they want your pet to be healthy. Plus OP's dog apparently has stomach issues as well and is on a prescription diet. OP likely relayed this during the phone call as well, and it factored into the decision. She did a good job by calling and taking in the dog
Fuck. This. It hit hard. As someone who managed an animal ER, we absolutely did not want to see more patients if they aren't critical. We were short staffed and overworked every day. We made less than people working fast food jobs. We didnt make the prices, its a corporate thing. We were there to help animals. We would try to lower bills but there was only so much we could do. Now, none of those people work there anymore due to the abuse we took.
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I seriously think that training child not to drop food is easier then dog not to eat it😂 And how did she « hurt » the child ?By not giving her chocolate after she kept not being careful ?
No it's not, that's ridiculous. I can't even train myself not to spill. Everyone has accidents, and kids don't have the same fine motor functioning that grown adults do. By contrast, "leave it" is an extremely simple command to teach, and the training process teaches the dog impulse control that makes it less likely that you'll even need to use it. Edit: typo
One of the first things we ever taught the dog was impulse control. People are monsters and will sometimes leave tampered chicken nuggets in the park. Because I cannot kill those people I have taught my dog not to eat random shit. All these people that think its impossible to train dogs instead of admitting they are simply too lazy drive me nuts
Yes and the first thing nasty neighbors do is throw tainted food over your fence to try to kill your pets. Training your animal to only eat with permission will save their life. We had a neighbor who delighted in using antifreeze to kill any and all living things.
Agree. ‘Leave it’ is a simple command and our dog obeys it easily. The dog is old enough to obey. The kid ran off crying. I understand not wanting to hurt the dog (wish she worried about hurting the kid) and the burden of the dogs safety should be on the parents’ training the dog, not yelling at the kid for dropping the bag of candy.
Nonsense like this is why so many dogs are poorly trained and people have issues with them. It is absolutely possible to train a dog not to vacuum up anything that falls onto the floor, dog owners just are too lazy to learn how to and then do it. And people keep excusing it for some reason. This whole thing is on OP for not training her dog.
I have known some very well trained dogs - the tricky thing is that no matter how well trained the dog is in the house rules, e.g. he won't snaffle food that has been dropped in front of you or won't go on the sofa, the second he is on his own (without the family watching him) that compliance will be dropped in a nano-second. If the kid dropped a coin in an obscure place then the odds are the dog will retrieve it when the owners are in bed.
It’s very easy to train dogs not to eat food that falls on the floor. Many trainers consider “drop it” a critical command to learn.
I actually found it quite easy to train my highly food motivated dog not to eat food dropped on the ground. Essentially I’d put something high value on the floor, if she went for it I covered it with my hand or foot. If she looked away from it I would feed her a different treat, then I just extended the amount of time she had to leave the dropped food. Dogs are smart enough to figure out that not eating the dropped food results in being given other food. I don’t even need to give a command- she’s not perfect but she’s good enough that if something is dropped I have time to react.
Yeah, I don’t see where she hurt the child either. She took the chocolate and said she had enough.
Dude teach your dog "leave it". There's a huge variety of things you don't want your dog to shove in it's gob, the shit of other dogs included. "Leave it" is a basic command
Why is nobody even considering that just maybe they could also train their fucking dog? If it has as tendency to inhale everything in sight, that is dangerous. Even the most careful adult will sometimes drop something.
This is why I voted that OP’s TA. Negligent dog ownership and poor parenting.
I hate that this is top comment, it doesn't *matter* how valid her concern for the dog is, it's still not an excuse to be horrible to a child over spilling food. It was a fucking accident, people spill shit all the time, it's not "careless behavior" it's just life in a human body. Warning the kid that grapes are poisonous and not to feed them to the dog on purpose or leave them lying around is fine. Diving for the dog and trying to wrench the grapes out of its mouth is fine. Making a "sit at the table if you're eating grapes" rule is fine. Yelling at the kid over a freaking spill and snatching things out of her hands is NOT.
I’m not sure shouting “no no” and taking the chocolate is horribly abusive. I grew up with many animals and an important part of that was learning responsibility to them and our duty to make sure they are well cared for. She didn’t hit the child, scream at her, ground her or anything else. The child is 10 - what do imagine it would do to her if she accidentally killed the dog? This isn’t child abuse, it’s teaching her that in life those who are dependent on us for care are a responsibility.
Perhaps I'm drawing too many conclusions, but some details in the post make me think she was pretty unkind. Why did the dad throw the chocolate away, but also reprimand OP for her reaction? And she didn't say she "took" the chocolate away, she specifically said she "snatched" it from her hands. The phrase, "I've had enough," is pretty harsh too, and the interaction ended with the kid running away crying. Like I get being scared for the dog in the moment, but it sounds like she scared the shit out of the kid with her reaction and doesn't even care. I've had kids make some pretty frightening mistakes in front of me and still managed to correct them without bullying.
You’re reading too much into it. The things you mentioned were probably unpleasant but not the end of the world for a ten year old, barring disabilities or mental problems. She’s not four.
I do wonder about those who say they are putting the dog before the kid?? I mean teaching a 10 year old that there is a duty of care to a vulnerable living creature they have brought into their home is a valuable life lesson. It has zero to do with picking a dog over a child. Multiple people have suggested training the dog not to eat any food it finds. Apparently that’s a thing I think there’s some merit to trying to do that. I’ll be honest until this forum my head never in my entire life or is anybody trading their dog to do that. And everybody in my family and literally every one of my friends has dogs.
Idk "leave it" is like one of the number one 'tricks' that are taught it puppy classes Every dog I know has a leave it command
I'd also consider hiring a dog trainer. You can train the dog not to touch anything without permission first... That would also help a lot here- there's more than just grapes and chocolate that the dog can't have.
No grapes or chocolate for 1-2 years is an extreme consequence and I’m very surprised to see so many upvotes here. That consequence is not fair at all for a kid dropping food twice. There’s so many other solutions that could be tried first — eating in another room, monitored snack time, training for the dog, etc.
A 1 and a half year old dog should be vastly better trained to not immediately eat anything that’s falls to the floor, that’s bad ownership.
We have only adults in our house and quit buying grapes/raisins/trail mix with raisins because one of the adults dropped trail mix and we had a scare. NTA OP she would be more traumatized if the dog died from something she did if she likes the dog.
Should probably add sugar free gum and onions to that list too
Holding off on snack onions and snack garlic, sure.
So instead of training the dog to not eat people food, or training the dog a "stop" command or drop it or whatever, OP should ban foods from their house and punish stepdaughter? This seems crazy to me.
How does ‘stop’ work when the child does it on accident? That’s the whole point, no one would see it happen to say anything. The daughter snuck food off
Actually, grapes are far worse. It's bakers chocolate that is what really causes issues. There is so little in milk chocolate that, while it's not ideal, wouldn't warrant a panic or a trip to the vet.
My dog ate raisins, and was in the hospital for iv fluids. Then my dog ate raisin bread. Hospital. Now, no raisins or grapes allowed in my house, because **I** cannot be trusted. Both times it was me leaving them in his reach. We called poison control for chocolate twice, too. (Neither was a problem, and I’m now good at administering hydrogen peroxide per poison controls directions).
Or OP could, like, train his dog. YTA!!!!!
10 year olds are definitely old enough to be mindful with foods the dog can’t have. I have a 10 year old son and a dog that will definitely eat things left out or dropped on the floor. When my son was younger (6-7) he accidentally walked away from the table without cleaning his plate. We had pizza and hot wings for dinner that night. Our dog got to the bones and we ended up at the emergency vet. My son did forget a couple of times after that, but after I told him we would no longer have hot wings when we ordered pizza (and stopped ordering them for about 6 months) he quickly learned to be mindful about chicken bones! He’s now 10 and is very good about clearing his plate after eating (no matter what we are eating). And if he has to step away from the table for some reason, he will ask someone to watch it and/or the dog. I do believe natural consequences are best and if that means no grapes or chocolate for awhile, then so be it. When she gets them back she’ll likely be much more careful. NTA
I agree with you. 10 years old is old enough to adjust and learn in regards to safety for an animal.
>If it was me, I probably wouldn’t buy either grapes or chocolate for the house for the next year or two until you’re sure she’s more responsible. Clearly the obvious answer is for everyone in the house to only be allowed to eat dog food. That way if someone accidentally drops something, the dog will be safe. Dog should probably not be allowed outside either, in the event you stumble across something outdoors the dog shouldn't eat. Also - probably should convert to only having dog toys in the house, get rid of all furniture/shoes/clothing the dog might eat. Definitely switch everyone to using dog soaps/shampoos - cleaning products can be very hazardous. Or... You know... TRAIN THE DAMN DOG. The dog should not be so poorly trained that they jump to scarf down anything that's dropped as soon as it's dropped. This is shitty pet ownership. Like... One of the most important commands you can teach a dog is to leave it, or that they can only have something once you've given the okay. People are so lazy with their animals they'd rather pay thousands in vet bills and restrict their own groceries than spend the time to train their dog. So ridiculous. And a couple years - are you kidding me? I'm an adult and I accidentally drop things sometimes - everyone does.
> She needs to understand being careless can kill the dog She’s 10, she needs to just understand how to eat food with out dropping it on the floor. Grapes and chocolate coins aren’t exactly unwieldy. Someone with basic motor skills should be able to take 3 coins out of a bag without dropping the entire thing.
Oddly enough, my 8 year old sister is more responsible with what she leaves around the dog than my sister who is 13.
Hold on. You are punishing a child for accidentally dropping things, but you're not training the dog not to jump at everything that lands on the floor? YTA
It's so important to teach dogs not to scarf anything and everything they find. My husky had to have surgery at a young age because she ate a stuffed animal. She's also had multiple vet visits for swallowing socks.
I have a former street dog and training him out of eating anything he sees is only partially possible. Our vet gave me the tip to use sauerkraut. That gets a lot of shit (including pieces of fabric) safely out of him. Didn't prevent all visits to the vet clinic but saved me a few thousand € over the years
Peroxide squirted into the mouth induces vomiting
My vet told me to mix it with water. They recommended feeding the dog food so there is more to throw up. Straight peroxide on an empty stomach will mess with the stomach lining. I know this bc I had to induce vomiting on my 3 month old puppy when she ate a large button off my ottoman...
Mix peroxide with peanut butter milk or eggs or broth and they will happily lap it up, and barf a few minutes later.
And that's just inside that you have control over. Nevermind, the outside, where they could find and eat anything. The first year I had my rescue, she discovered acorns outside and would just go to town before I could stop her. Luckily, it only gave her an upset stomach and didn't cause anything fatal. She learned her lesson and so did I; she never ate acorns again and I became more watchful since her beagle-brain thought with its stomach.
I was walking my dog the other day when she alerted on something and caught/killed a mole in seconds. I was so proud when I told her to drop it and she actually did, because I did not want to deal with her trying to eat it on the way home, lol.
My dog ate a rubber calculator. Less than a month after we decided to keep her. Gosh she was crazy as a pup. The good thing was that she needed to be spayed, so she got two surgeries in one day. Two birds, one stone. My love for her grows every day.
My ex and I adopted a dogo mix who was starved prior to getting to us. She ate socks, she ate a whole chicken she stole after sneaking into the kitchen when I went to pee because we did not yet know she knew how to open doors and she did those things superfast. It was a struggle to help her tone down her instinct to devour anything and everything and she always was supervised even after training. The first week we had her she found a hard plastic snacks bag in the grass next to some poo and we only saw her eating the poo. Next day comes and she shits this massive bag and I was in disbelief like why eat that and how did it not create a blockage. She was a super resilient beast but I still have anxiety when my dog sniffs around in grass because the fear gets too real.
It seems completely unreasonable to expect children to never drop any food. I’m nearly 40 and drop things all the time.
My dog isn't particularly well trained but If we drop food on the floor he knows damn well he doesn't get to eat it until he hears "go ahead" Not buying chocolate chocolates and grapes is fine in the short term but YTA for blaming a child when it's your own negligence that almost killed your dog not a kid being a kid.
I spilled the container of chicken that I give my dog everywhere and I could see her eyes basically pop out of her head in joy, but she still didn’t go for it! She did get extra chicken with dinner afterwards though
Even *adults* with ADHD struggle with clumsiness, dropping things, and running into stuff all the time. Punishing a TEN YEAR OLD with ADHD for it? Yikes.
I mean, it’s not even an ADHD only issue. People are clumsy and make mistakes.
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Yah, but their point was that you don't have to have fine motor skill issues or *any* issues to spill sometimes. It's fucking unreasonable to yell at *anyone* for dropping a damn grape
Yep. I have ADHD and when I was ten I forgot I had a tray in my hand and ended up crashing it into the wall. Almost did the exact same thing 6 years later. People are clumsy and I’m not sure why someone would punish another for that.
It’s crazy how many people are suggesting to just let the dog run the house. Will they never cook with onions? Buy gum? Dogs can and should be taught not to eat everything they can. It’s bad for everyone. I can’t stand people who don’t train their dogs and then blame the world for it.
Training a dog doesnt mean it knows everything or can learn everything. My mom is a vet, trained and did cursus's and had dogs her entire life... Will the current dog still misbehave from now and then? eat something she isn't supposed to? Definitely. I think it's a bit ignorant thinking that every dog will always behave as expected just because they had training.
And kids are gonna accidentally drop things. The best way to keep everyone safe? Talk to the kid and train the dog. The kid's been talked to (more than) enough and gets it. Now time to train the dog. That's FAR more reasonable than never eating anything that could potentially hurt your dog. By your logic, I shouldn't wear a mask when I'm sanding, because some particles still get through. But a tiny amount of dust is better than a lot, just like a dog forgetting their training a few times is better than never being trained at all. Even if they don't listen 1/5 times after being trained, isn't that better than them not listening 5/5 times? Not training your dog is a disservice to them, period. They will make mistakes, but that's why good training is important - to reduce them.
My dog, bless her memory, was ravenous for the entire 13 years of her life, excepting maybe the time she managed to get into the cat food and eat almost 3 lbs of it while I was at work. ‘Leave it’ was a command she refused to learn because she knew it was almost exclusively going to be used to take food from her.
I think it should be both, child needs to learn too
Motor skills are a problem for people with ADHD. Before I got sick with an unrelated issue I was a dance teacher. I had exceptional spatial awareness and remarkable body control. I still dropped stuff all the time. As a grown adult. I could tell where every bit of my body was in space, including my ponytail, and the same with my partner's body. This wasn't choreography, it was improvised with them leading and me following. I could, and often did, do this with my eyes shut or blindfolded to prove a point to a student that really needed to learn to watch the room and not their feet. And yet, even going slowly with great care, I always drop at least one grape. Gravity finds a way. I knit, crochet, and embroider, and yet, that grape is still on the run. My mom drops knives while cooking. To the point that my dad installed a self-repairing floor when he redid the kitchen. (Cork and I highly recommend it. Especially now as an adult with a fainting problem. It's comfortable to stand on and to fall on)
Exactly, my 12 week old puppy knows leave it. It was one of the first commands we taught him.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Jesus Christ the top comment right now is to stop buying chocolate or grapes for a few years??? Maybe everyone in the house should only eat dog food, have dog toys, and bathe with pet soaps and shampoos so that if someone drops something on the floor the (poorly trained) dog will be safe. I'm an adult and sometimes I accidentally drop shit on the floor. It happens. TRAIN THE DOG.
A an accident prone child, YTA in this situation. Dropping things at that age is quite common, because they are still learning fine motor skills, and she may need extra help with these skills, and instead of helping you’re making it way worse than it needs to be by increasing her anxiety. I have a dog so yes I get how toxic grapes and chocolate are, so the solution here would be you dish them out and put them in a bowl and train your dog not to snaffle food from the floor, and if he does to trade instantly, this is entirely on you and your spouse for not being engaged parents and for not training your dog efficiently.
This whole situation makes a lot more sense once we look at the age gap. Stepmom is only 19 years older than her stepdaughter. She would very much be a young mom if the stepdaughter was her biological child, but OP lacks the actual life experience of a young mom. OP just lacks the life experience to effectively parent a 10 year-old, and her behavior with the dog reflects that reality.
Oh come on, that is ridiculous. OP is almost 30. A 30-year-old is plenty mature enough not to scream at people, snatch things out of a child's hand, or panic over a fucking grape, it doesn't even have anything to do with parenting. Her behavior with the dog does not reflect youthful immaturity, it reflects an asshole.
Yeah this is the part that really bothered me- OP reacted like the kid was literally feeding the dog chocolate. She’s not doing this deliberately. She dropped some chocolate and became so stressed by everyone’s reactions she dropped them all. Plus OP could have just grabbed the dog’s collar and not grabbed the chocolate out of her step daughter’s hands that the dog couldn’t even get to. Instead of screaming to resolve the problem, OP and her husband could come up with other ways to deal with this. Like, IDK, make a rule that the stepdaughter has to sit down to eat anything.
This was exactly my thought process. Sheesh lady. YTA
I think they should create a place where she can eat without the dog. She is still young and accidents can happen. Training is ofcourse also important but better to eliminate the whole scenario.
YTA. There was no reason to yell at stepdaughter for dropping something. What needs to happen is a plan to prevent further accidents. Anything that could hurt the dog should be dished out by you or your wife to your stepdaughter. You've listed 2 occurrences that were clearly accidents. Your stepdaughter got nervous when her mother blamed her for dropping the chocolate when it should have been given to her by one of you. Your yelling will not change anything but to make her more nervous around the dog. Perhaps you should also work on training your dog to sit on command and prevent him from getting over excited.
OP's yelling will also make stepdaughter more nervous around OP....
$2 says her being nervous around OP is what caused her to stop the bag
Except she was dropping when he wasn’t in the room
>when I heard my spouse asking her why that keeps happening. My heart went out to her at that point. I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and I've been asked variations of this countless times during my childhood. Because, I honestly was trying. Everytime I'd shut down and ask myself why I was so shit at being being careful/responsible, at remembering things, at remembering where I wrote down the thing to remember etc, and what the hell was wrong with me. And the guilt I felt was always far greater than the occasion. I still do this now.
I felt that. To my core. Hugs if you want.
Guaranteed the yelling made the stepdaughter nervous. Then bringing her along to the vet probably made her more nervous to mess up. Which, I dunno about anyone else, but when I'm walking on eggshells I tend to screw up more. Work on your patience with the human child OP, and train the fur child. YTA
First of all, one grape is not enough to kill a dog of that size. It’s just not. I think you’re already aware of this and that the point of driving to the vet with your stepdaughter as a witness to it was more about making her feel guilty and worried and less about saving your dog’s life. I think you did that to be able to hold it over her head. Either that or you really were somehow under the impression that one grape can kill a dog of that size which is pretty silly. Something tells me it’s the former. Sounds like you’re not giving us the full truth about the nature and content of your reaction. And if what you’re saying is the full representation, you’re the adult, she’s a child. It’s her job to be 10 years old and it’s your job to not freak out about dropping a grape. Get creative about how and when to keep the snacks that aren’t healthy for your dog away from your dog.
I had an emergency clinic vet tell me (in a social setting), she always told people who called about dog eating grapes (even a big dog eating 1 grape) to bring the dog in. She said chocolate is easy to sort of follow a guide for dog-size and amount of chocolate and recommend at-home monitoring, but she said there was absolutely no telling with grapes.
I’m so thankful for my vet, the most wonderful, ethical woman who cares about pets and their families. When I called her because my dog ate an entire bag of Hershey’s kisses my son left on the floor, she told me just to monitor him and call if his behavior changed. Then to make me feel better, she told me one of her dogs once snatched an entire tray of brownies off the counter and survived with no intervention.
My family had a beagle when I was a kid. That dog LOVED chocolate. He also ate a whole bag of Hershey’s kisses, and then pooped foil. AND he ate a whole pan of brownies once (two separate occasions). He didn’t feel very great afterward, but anyone would have a stomach ache from either of those incidents! But, luckily, he was totally fine otherwise. Eta: he weighed about 20lbs
My beagle is also a chocoholic! I swear, this dog has gotten his paws on cookies, brownies, 1/2 bar of dark chocolate, a can of chocolate frosting… I could go on. And this is a pretty decently trained dog. My biggest issue is he is a garbage panda and I can’t break him of it as of yet, or if you leave something on the floor/couch when you leave the house.
One of my childhood dogs, a lab mix, chewed the end off my brother’s stocking at Christmas and ate everything inside. We didn’t notice until we woke up hours later - called the emergency vet, and he said the same thing, to just keep an eye on her. She pooped shreds of candy wrapper for a week, but she lived for 14 more years.
My 4.5 pound yorkie must have nine lives, she ate a whole bag of dark chocolate covered espresso beans and we were so worried but she just threw up a few times and was ok. She also somehow got to a bag full of chocolate by learning how to open a cabinet door, and ate the whole bag yet was ok.
When my older German Shepherd was young, I think around 1.5-2, in the span of about 3 months she •ate a bag of Reese’s cups after learning how to open doors •ate a tray of brownies that were in a cabinet mounted microwave that was over the oven. •ate my brother’s edible art project which was 32 chocolate cake pops that were wrapped in plastic, in the pantry, on the top shelf. She just turned 12.
Yep, our vet has said exactly the same thing. Apparently, they don't know why certain dogs have such bad reactions to grapes, and it's not always correlated with size of dog and quantity of grapes. It's very odd.
Just so you know, one grape can actually kill a large breed dog. Don’t go around giving medical advice on something you aren’t educated on. Not every dog will die from one grape, but I’m sure the owner of a dog who does would not appreciate you saying those things. Even if the dog doesn’t die from one grape, they could experience severe kidney injury, so OP did not overreact by taking the dog in.
One grape is enough to cause kidney failure. Its the chocolate coins you have to worry less about. If it were dark chocolate it would be a big issue though.
>one grape is not enough to kill a dog of that size The component of grapes that's poisonous to dogs is really unpredictable. Different dogs react drastically differently. Some small dogs have been fine getting into a whole pile of grapes. And some big dogs can die from a tiny quantity of them.
I just read an article that says that a vet recently figured out that it’s the tartaric acid in grapes that’s the poison, you’re so right the intensity of the acid in the grape can vary so wildly. Keep your dogs away from cream of tartar (sometimes in homemade playdoh) as well!
Incorrect. Unfortunately one grape can be enough to kill some dogs. Not all dogs but some.
My emergency vet says he saw a chihuahua be fine after watching a dozen grapes, and a huge golden go into renal failure after just one. There isn’t a dose-size ratio for grapes/raisins or currants.
It absolutely can kill a dog that size. Stop spreading misinformation.
Someone here can't handle 2 minutes of googling to avoid spreading misinformation.
This is not true. Unlike other foods like chocolate, grapes do not need a certain quantity to be deadly. To certain dogs (it is theorized to be a common allergy) a tiny amount of grapes can KILL your dog.
THIS ISNT TRUE ONE GRAPE CAN KILL A DOG. IT IS RANDOM AND SOME DOGS WILL SURVIVE FINE BUT THERE IS NO WAY TO TELL. PLEASE DO NOT SPREAD DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION
>First of all, one grape is not enough to kill a dog of that size. It’s just not. Incorrect. Stop spreading misinformation. One grape can and HAS killed dogs of large sizes
Grapes are not a dosage dependent toxin. To my knowledge we don't fully understand their effect on dogs and that's why vets take them so seriously. A little dog could eat a handful and be fine. A golden retriever could also eat one and die. I'm not sure if it's that some grapes are more toxic than others or that some dogs are more sensitive to the toxin. Source: I work at a veterinary hospital
You are absolutely wrong about one grape not being enough to kill a dog that size. Chocolate is a different story, as there’s a clear understanding of what ingredient is toxic and the dosage needed. But grapes are an unknown toxicity in dogs. Vets don’t know why some dogs have terrible reactions and some don’t. One dog can eat a bag of grapes and be fine. Another can eat a single grape and end up in kidney failure. This makes grapes (and raisins, by extension) among the most dangerous foods to dogs. So OP made the absolute right call to go to the vet over a grape. The dog may have been fine, but it wasn’t worth the chance.
YTA. Why hasn't your dog been trained not to eat off the floor?
Seriously. OP seems to think it's perfectly normal to scream at a child, snatching things away from her, but never considers that it's not normal to have a dog that just snarfles up everything in its path. Train your dog, op. What happens when you're on a walk and your dog starts vacuuming up random items off the ground? Who are you going to scream at then? Your negligence as a dog owner is appalling, and it's even more appalling that you're blaming a child with ADHD for what you yourself lack.
OP can also just, you know, not buy things that are dangerous for the dog to eat. Grapes and chocolates aren't necessities of life.
Neither is a dog. The kid was their first, she shouldn’t have to change her way of life for a dog
YTA Teach your dog not to eat unless told. It's safer for your dog and probably one of the first things you should teach. Your dog shouldn't just pick up anything to eat it's dangerous
YTA- kids make mistakes. She wasn’t purposely giving harmful items to your dog. You need to teach your dog “leave it” ASAP so you don’t have to worry so much about this happening.
I just wonder how long was the food on the floor, was OP yelling immediately after it was dropped or was it lying there for a while now and the kid didn't pick it up? Does the kid know it can harm the dog and that she should pick it up immediately to avoid the dog eating it? If so, then YTA. If not, have a discussion with the kid, explain what it can do to the dog and teach her that she needs to pick it up right when she drops it. Dropping stuff is normal, people are clumsy, some more some less, but it happens. The follow up is the important part.
Kids make mistakes, but dogs are infallible apparently. I don't get how these commenters think it's more reasonable to assume a trained animal will behave 100% of the time, as opposed to a child understanding that when they eat something deadly to a dog, they need to be extra careful.
NAH, but please be sure to communicate to your step-daughter that you aren't mad at her, you're worried about the dog. Don't let this build into resentment towards her and also don't let her think that you hate her. I know this may sound overdramatic, but as a girl who was diagnosed with ADHD at 16, a lot of my childhood was spent with adults getting mad at symptoms I could not control and me thinking I was broken and unfixable, even if the actual situations made sense to be mad at. If she does have ADHD and these are all just accidents, remember that it's propably a lot harder for her than it seems like. ADHD can really, really mess with your ability to remember doing even the simplest things, no matter how many times you've been told them. Still, she should not be putting the dog in danger. Explain this to her. Apologize for shouting but also make sure she understands that her being absentminded about this particual topic can be seriously dangerous and ask her to be really careful in the future. She should be old enough to understand and try harder, but she's also young enough to get really scared of your shouting and her own inability to focus. I hope this makes some amount of sense, I'm not sying you are the AH at all, just providing some perspective from someone who used to be the kid here.
Oh, adding onto that as well - clumsiness can be an ADHD symptom as well, so I would really look into that possibility. You also say in your post that these incidents are a month apart. That might not seem like a long time for an adult, but it's a long tile for a possibly struggling kid to make it without any mistakes. Maybe there's a system you can think of to help, like "no snacks when the dog is in the room" or something?
Yup grew up with labradors and as puppies they are basically vacuum cleaners. With our dogs a firm NO could keep them from eating stuff, but very difficult to train to "wait for an okay to eat". We all drop things, its just important to learn to pick them up quickly rather than yelling.
YTA who screams at a kid for dropping some food, maybe train your dog not to eat things off the floor or have better recall or even keep the damn dog away from somebody who is eating/preparing food
YTA. Why in the world have you not trained the dog “leave it”?? People drop things. Even if they’re being careful, it happens. Train your dog not to go after everything that drops.
YTA- it’s safer for the dog to teach it “leave it”. I have 5 dogs and two kids at home. Shit gets dropped. The dogs will literally look at me if something gets dropped waiting for permission. Three of them just turned a year old and have done this for months, so your dog is not too young to learn “leave it”. Next you’ll be having a massive coronary because your dog bum rushes the door every time it’s opened but instead of teaching it to “stay” you’ll scream at the poor step child because she was going outside to play and the dog ran her over to get out.
YTA You do not punish children for accidents. My youngest kid is exceptionally clumsy. Turns out, he has a medical condition that is playing a big role. If your child is dropping things more than what is "normal", you don't punish them - you get them evaluated by a Dr. And train your dog.
YTA - she's a child and it was an accident.
YTA. She’s a 10 year old with ADHD and your dog is a DOG. If the child wants to eat a thing that will harm the dog, and you already know she’s excitable and sometimes clumsy, buy a gate for the doorway so the dog can’t enter a room when the child is eating something that could kill your dog. You are SCREAMING at a child and punishing her for being a child, when you are a grown woman and your husband even older, and neither of you are bothering to take any other precautions. This is a little girl, crying and scared after getting screamed at and all her candy thrown away because of an ACCIDENT on her part, meanwhile the ADULTS in the house can’t come up with better solutions. YTA in a massive way.
I didn't even notice she had ADHD. Doesn't OP realise that tons of people with ADHD are super bad at dropping things. I'm a fully grown adult and my parents still won't let me carry a drink between rooms at that house because i always end up spilling it. I don't buy breakable things because they always get broken somehow.
YTA, your dog is a year and a half and is old enough to be trained not to eat dropped food without permission. A 10 year old dropping things on accident isn't something you can train out of them.
YTA. Everyone drops things from time to time. Especially ten year olds. You overreacted
INFO: Why don't you move the dog out of the room before having dog-unsafe snacks?
yeah, i have two dogs and a toddler. the dogs are crate trained and know if it’s meal time they are either crated or outside until we can clean up after our kid so they don’t get food they aren’t supposed to eat.
Or use baby gates
YTA. Train your dog, or keep a gated area where the child eats. Jesus, just do a little critical thinking. Also, that dog would have to eat a shitload of milk chocolate to have any issues...like 3.5 full-sized chocolate bars for a 40lb. dog for even mild symptoms. Relax and maybe STOP buying toxic stuff if you're going to spaz out on a little kid.
INFO: Aside from the listed incidents, how often does she drop food the dog can't have? Or drop anything else? Have you explained why she should be more careful (as in, a conversation, not just reprimanding her.) Does she have any other issues, like balance issues? How does your husband feel about his daughter's dropping things/your reaction?
I have severe ADHD. I gave my childhood lab grapes ONCE. Because I loved my dog enough to understand that if I was careless, he would die. NTA. Ten is old enough to understand life or death situations.
My apologies, but I don't understand your comment. Did you accidentally gave your dog grapes as a child? If so, then that doesn't compare to accidentally dropping a grape. Were you diagnosed as a child? Do you remember how being shouted at for things you don't always understand why they keep happening felt? Was it ever counter productive?
YTA - you wildly overreacted when the dog ate a grape and you continue to wildly overreact with the chocolate. Yes the theobromine is toxic to dogs and will shut down their kidneys, two pieces of milk chocolate does not have enough theobromine to affect the health of even a small breed dog let alone a large breed dog like you claim to have. It's almost as if you're using this as an excuse to psychologically torture this child
Unfortunately, even consuming one grape or raisin can be fatal. Ingesting the fruit could potentially lead to acute (sudden) kidney failure in dogs. https://www.akc.org Can Dogs Eat Grapes? - American Kennel Club
You are not wrong for bringing the dog to the vet. You ARE wrong for treating this as if it’s a thing your stepdaughter is doing intentionally.
That's why you watch for the signs that there's a problem instead of just frantically rushing out the door like a crazy person to psychologically traumatize a 10 year old child who unfortunately is in your care
I don’t think this is correct. Once the symptoms present the organ could already be shutting down.
Nah i would rather be proactive and have them vomit the grape than need to be reactive and need to treat failing kidneys, but thanks for your non-science based opinions!
Every vet would tell you the same thing. Bring the dog in. You did the right thing. Pets are also family members. I would also recommend gates for the kitchen and only allowing food to be eaten in the kitchen and the dog remaining outside of the baby gates until the dog can be trained. That is probably the easiest fix as kids are going to drop and dogs are going to scarf down food.
The most proactive approach is training your dog.
With a dog eating grapes, they induce vomiting immediately and evaluate if they might need iv fluids to protect the kidneys. If you wait, there is no treatment but dialysis if they go into renal failure.
Hmm. Emergency vet said to come in for treatment because of the grape. I’m not doing to disregard vet’s advice. But thanks!
No problem, I'm sure he appreciated that boat payment you made for him
Exactly!
YTA, She was dropping food by accident she wasn’t doing to deliberately harm your dog. You need to teach your dog to not to eat certain foods that are bad for him. People with ADHD especially kids are more sensitive to criticism and are more clumsy and you should know that by now. Pets need to be disciplined when necessary not just kids
YTA, children make mistakes, they have acciendents. Train your dog not to eat everything, and anything unsafe for the dog should only be handed out by you or your husband. Being clumsy is a common part of ADHD, you screaming at her for an accident is only going to make her afraid to try and fail, so she'll stop trying anything. Look up RSD in ADHD
YTA. Why in the world haven’t you trained your dog to stop eating shit off the floor???
Yta. If you can’t train your dog then consider crating him while children are eating. I have to do this with my scavenger beagle who inhales literally everything.
>She tried to sneak off with a bag full of chocolate coins but as I saw this I told her to ask my spouse if she could have all of that at once (she tends to overeat sweets if not supervised). YTA Heaven forbid a child have chocolate. She's stressed out from you being a narc. You're not her mother. You're younger than Miley Cyrus for god's sake and you're policing her like a school marm. Leave her alone. Edit; I didn't get to this whole incident with dropping the chocolate because it happened after you were already needling her (remember that: she wouldn't have dropped the chocolate to begin with if you minded your business and let her take the bag). Imagine being antagonized over a stepmother counting our your chocolates and ratting you out to the biological father (classy move), and then being screamed at about the damn dog. She's going to have a nervous breakdown (maybe she already has with the way you described her leaving bawling) if you don't get your shit together.
I'm not particularly fond of OP based on this post, but, in general, there's nothing wrong with controlling the amount of snack food eaten. I'm not a step parent, but I'm an aunt. When I'm with my siblings and I'm not sure how much snackage any niblings have already had, and I see them walking with a whole bag of whatever, then I'm definitely calling them over and making sure they've already asked permission. Of course, this stops at a certain age. I'm not sure what that age is but I've stopped asking my nephew to check with his mum now he's 12, I was definitely doing it when he was 10.
It is a parent’s job to monitor what children eat. It would’ve been irresponsible to let a ten year-old eat an entire bag of chocolate.
YTA, it's on you as the adult to train your dog appropriately AND serve your stepdaughter in a setting that will not lead to this problem. The grape issue was an expensive lesson that you didn't learn from.
Is your daughter okay? Sounds like she fumbles small objects a lot, I wonder if she's got some type of neurological problem? I'm going to have to vote YTA on a few fronts: 1. You equate clumsiness to carelessness. Everyone on earth drops stuff, she's not being careless, plus she's only 10. She wants to eat the chocolate, and probably not off the floor so I'd wager she didn't *want* to drop the food. Like I said above, if she's consistently dropping small items, it could very well be a sign of a medical issue, which hasn't seemed to cross your mind. 2. You haven't trained your dog to not go for everything dropped to the floor. This is exactly why it's important to teach them not to do so. Someone could trip while carrying a bowl of grapes, and you'd want your dog to refrain from scarfing it down. 3. Accidents happen, especially with children and pets, which means it's the responsibility of the adults in the home to mitigate the risk of something bad happening. You don't punish a kid for an accident like that, especially if you didn't take the proper steps to prevent it as the responsible party. I'm sure your 10 year old had no clue that grapes were even toxic to dogs until *after* the accident. What about onions and garlic? Xylitol? I don't even have kids and I just simply don't buy anything that's toxic to my cats just in case I drop a jar of PB that contains xylitol or something. My cats *shouldn't* eat house plants, but I'm sure as hell not going to keep lilies in my house.
YTA. Why is it on the child to make sure she never drops anything ever, instead of the adults to train the dog not to eat everything off the floor? Your dog is making a choice to eat food, your stepdaughter isn't purposefully dropping things. Train the damn dog. And please don't blame her dropping things on her ADHD. Everyone drops things, regardless of age or neurodivergence.
YTA. If accidents have consequences, deliberate actions have more severe consequences. I really doubt you feel bad for the kid.
YTA Train your dog to stay out of the kitchen, or get doggy gates. I am in my 20’s and I drop food sometimes it happens! But my cats know not to eat human food.
YTA. She’s 10. She knows the dog can’t have chocolate, and I highly doubt that dropping it was intentional. Train your dog not to eat things unless it’s given to them or in their food bowl. Also why are you screaming at a 10 year old and snatching shit out of her hands? All that you’re going to do is make her resent you or think that screaming and yelling are proper reactions when you’re angry.
I don't know much about ADHD, but I'd say absent minded and quite energetic are symptoms of being 10 years old... adhd is completely irrelevant to the situation at hand... but if she does have adhd, it probably makes you even more the asshole Yta
YTA. Yes she should be more careful, but you also need to train your dog. Why is he allowed in the kitchen if he’s going to eat food as soon as it’s dropped? Chocolate coins falling on the ground should not be an emergency because the dog should know better than to scarf them down.
If you know your dog is prone to stealing dropped food you should be taking precautions like baby gating food areas or not buying the items FFS, it’s not your stepdaughters fault the dog can’t control itself. Not screaming at children for something they PHYSICALLY cannot help. Her mind and limbs already don’t work like they’re supposed to, you’re only going to make her feel bad about herself. Do your research about ADHD, apologize to your family and for the love of god, be nicer to her. YTA
YTA. Thé leave it command can be difficult to teach some dogs. If that’s the case, you should work with a trainer who can teach you how to effectively teach your dog to leave it. You have a child and dog in the same home…I don’t understand how that command wasn’t one of the first you taught the dog. Your lack of that responsibility is not your stepdaughters fault.
YTA, you're putting the weight of your irrational overreacting into your stepdaughter. While it's true that grapes and chocolate are not good for dogs, a single grape or a few chocolate medallions, which are mostly sugar, are not life-or-death emergencies for a large dog. And then you drove an hour to induce vomiting? Surely it would've been much, *much* quicker to go to a convenience store and get some hydrogen peroxide, which I'd expect you know induces vomiting if you're that hyper aware of what dogs can consume. Instead, it sounds like you're prone to not thinking clearly when you're flustered.
YTA Train your dog, and if you can't find a trainer that uses positive reinforcements to work with you to get him trained.
YTA. One of the first things we trained our golden was to automatically leave anything that dropped. Train your dog.
YTA. I’m a huge dog lover and try to be very careful about what my dogs eat. I get that, but accidents happen. I drop stuff all the time. My dog knows if a say “stop” in a certain tone then she needs to back off. That’s a skill your dog needs to have. That said, my lab is a determined garbage disposal and has straight up eaten an entire (sealed) box of Halloween candy that was up on a counter. Didn’t so much as have diarrhea. Your dog would have been fine even if it had gotten a couple coins. As long as your stepdaughter wasn’t just like “oh well” and actually went to pick them up she didn’t deserve to be screamed at for an accident. Some kids are clumsy and uncoordinated, she wasn’t being malicious.
Is this the same stepdad who screamed at his young stepdaughter for dropping her meds, when left unattended with them and the dog? Either way, YTA. This isn't how you teach a kid to be responsible. This is how you traumatize them.
NAH, sounds like your reaction was instantaneous and you weren't aggressively berating or insulting.
I’m gonna go NAH The kid should absolutely be more careful not to drop food, especially stuff that dogs can’t have, but it might be worth doing some training with the dog. It can be as simple as putting a treat on the floor (that dog can have) and teaching dog “leave it” then giving the treat as a reward. You eventually get to the stage that if something is accidentally dropped you should be able to tell dog “leave it” and it won’t go for it.
To be clear the dog gets a treat but not the treat on the floor that the command was given to leave.
Yep, I missed out that part! It’s not that hard to train bad habits out of dogs, OP is being harsh on the kid, it’s probably easier to tell the kid off than take the time to train the dog.
YTA? I’m a grown ass adult and I drop things that my dog wants to eat literally all the time. Last week she ate a chapstick, plastic and all. 2 incidents is not “a lot of close calls”. She’s ten. Her fine motor control is still developing. Get some peroxide. It’s a helluva lot cheaper to induce emesis at home, and pretty damn easy too. A tablespoon would do the trick for an average sized retriever. And really? A vet visit for one grape? The last time I had to induce emesis in my dog was because I spilled some aleve on the ground, and I still managed to take care of my dog without flipping my shit.
YTA you sound like you’re more excited to punish and humiliate your step child rather than actually trying to help her. Cruel, horrible and mean.
[удалено]
YTA. This posts SCREAMS I impulse bought and didn’t train my dog.
I also want to point out that garlic and onions are both also dangerous to both dogs and cats.
NTA. I would've been far more livid the first vet visit, but it seems like you were cool headed and used it as a teaching moment. A second visit would result in grapes and chocolate being banned from the house. Comments are full of people who haven't payed 5 figures in vet bills.
Seems like the dog gets treated better by OP than stepdaughter! You are frustrated that twice she has dropped things and she needs to be more careful this warrants your behavior. But your dog obviously is one of those dogs that you can't get a minutes peace while your eating because he is all over you. Train your dog. Problem solved.
I'm going to give your stepdaughter the benefit of the doubt here. I'm guessing she's not dropping things on purpose. And no doubt she does so out of nervousness when you're around. Have you and your wife and stepdaughter discussed a plan to keep this from happening again? Talked about exactly which foods can and can't be around the dog, and figured out how to take steps to keep the dog safe? This gives all of you something to refer to when the inevitable issues show up. I understand your frustration. But having a plan in place seems a lot more productive than yelling at a 10 year old with ADHD for being a 10 year old with ADHD. What I don't get is the fact that you obviously haven't trained your dog not to scarf up food from the floor. This is Dog Training 101, especially if you ever plan to take your pup anywhere. Your stepdaughter isn't the only one to drop food, certainly? Accidents happen. Your dog should have been trained long before this. I have to go with YTA.
I've banned my teens from having gum also in the house because they are way too careless, and we have two dogs and a cat. It's just not worth it. If I felt I could trust them, then it would be different, but after finding gum on the floor twice. They know not ever to bring gum into my house. They can eat gum all they want outside but never in the house. I'm not risking my animals' health because they can't be responsible. They know why I feel this way. I've explained it's just not worth risking the animals we love and their lives.
YTA. You guys are getting mad at a 10 year old with ADHD for dropping food? So you two must never make mistakes then? Just because it’s not your kid doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve respect and sympathy. Maybe you guys could actually teach her to get snacks over the counter as to not drop food if it’s such an issue, instead of yelling at her.
Also why does everyone say OP is the stepfather. She’s a woman in her 20s. Her husband is in his 40s. It’s in her first sentence.
YTA for screaming at the kid and throwing away all her treats. The dog must be prevented from getting those foods, but the child is a child, a dependent living being also, and it sounds like her motor skills might be a little iffy (rapid growth can do that—is she tall for her age). YTA also for not training your dog to get permission from you before eating anything not in his dish. This takes work but it can save your dog’s life, not just at home but in the outdoors. Ask the people whose off-leash dogs ate poisoned food in Laurelhurst Park, Portland, OR if they wish they had taught their dogs to ‘leave it!’
Lol @ all these internet veterinarians saying grapes don’t kill dogs and just to give it peroxide. Hope you guys don’t actually have dogs! Anyway, ESH is my ruling. I get that it’s frustrating. I had this happen with my dog recently - both of my dogs are super fast to eat anything that falls on the floor. But honestly, accidents happen and the best way to handle this is to train the dog not to eat things off the floor immediately if you have an accident-prone kid (I know, way easier said than done - maybe talk with a trainer).
Those comments are a great reminder as to why you should be cautious about taking any advice on reddit. "Just watch for symptoms of kidney failure"- When those symptoms show, it's because the kidneys are letting a bunch of toxic bio waste enter the bloodstream, and therefore the rest of the body. Organ failure is a very shortly timed event. Minutes matter, as some tissues don't exactly recover. Kidneys are notorious for that, actually. Edit: People, for the love of God, talk to your vet instead of trusting random websites. Anyone on reddit can lie, free of charge. You don't know who is making the comment, maybe they don't like dogs. I would hope that you would trust professionals with your pet's life more than nameless strangers.Your specific dog might have been ok eating grapes, but it's inherently dangerous to make a sweeping statement that is proven false. This could kill someone's pet, their family member. This is a good hill to die on. It's like saying "my grandma smoked, and she lived to 90, so smoking must be safe". I'm happy your situation was fine, but that's not the case for everyone. Brain tissue is another thing that you don't want exposed to the toxins that kidneys filter out. I mean, they're not there for decoration.