Is Plant-Tone Fertilizer Poisonous to Dogs?

While The Espoma Company’s Plant-tone fertilizer does contain ingredients that in raw forms are toxic to dogs, the product does not contain sufficient quantities in strong enough concentrations to harm animals.

One ingredient in Plant-tone fertilizer is cocoa meal, which can sometimes contain traces of theobromine. This compound is the component of chocolate that is toxic to dogs.

Also known as “chocolate sickness,” symptoms of theobromine poisoning in dogs include vomiting, increased heart rate, muscle spasms, seizures and death. Toxicity varies greatly depending on the size of the dog and amount ingested.

Cocoa meal is only added as a fertilizer component after it goes through a process by which virtually all cocoa butter is removed. Because theobromine is found primarily in the butter, the stripping process should eliminate all but the smallest traces of theobromine.

Espoma claims a dog would have to eat more than his own body weight of pure cocoa meal to ingest a near-toxic dose. Because cocoa meal constitutes less than 10 percent of Plant-tone’s total volume, there is only a very slim chance a dog will be poisoned by eating Plant-tone.

Use caution when selecting mulches that contain cocoa hulls. Because these hulls have not been processed to extract cocoa butter, they may still contain sufficient quantities of theobromine to poison a dog.