To mulch or not to mulch

A posting on a local bulletin board today warned people about using cocoa mulch in their gardens, saying it could be harmful to your dogs.

Snopes.com, the great debunker of urban legends (and sometimes, I guess, a bunker of legends as well) says it's partly true.

According to tables we've examined, cocoa mulch contains 300-1,200 mg of theobromine per ounce, making cocoa mulch one of the strongest concentrations of theobromine a pet is likely to encounter in any chocolate product. However, the question of the gravity of the risk presented by this type of gardening mulch remains a matter of debate.

ConsumerReports.com weighed in on cocoa mulch back in June 2006.

Cocoa mulch is made from crushed cacao shells, which contain caffeine and theobromine, two compounds to which dogs are particularly sensitive. (These substances are also present in everyday comestibles like baker's chocolate, chocolate bars and candies, colas, and tea.) Depending on the size of the dog and the amount of cocoa mulch it ingests, symptoms can range from stomach upset to cardiac arrest. Dogs metabolize the compounds slowly, so symptoms may take hours or even days to manifest themselves. The ASPCA's advice: Avoid using cocoa mulch anywhere unsupervised dogs roam.

I haven't made any trips to gardening stores so I don't know if cocoa mulch is sold locally. But it sounds as if it should be avoided.

There are other mulch products out there like cedar chips and pine straw, Consumer Reports said. They are typically less toxic but still may contain resins and oils that cause gastrointestinal problems in pets that eat them.