I only picked up on this from one of those Facebook round robin things about animals dying after eating them. It may be something which has come up before or it may turn out there is more to it. You never know with Facebook things. Interesting and worrying though.
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Yes, I heard a number of years ago that Cocoa shells is very dangerous for animals - especially dogs.
It's the chocolate content that's bad for pets, especially dogs who are more likely to eat it than cats. Use ordinary bark mulch instead.
It is a chemical called 'theobromine' which is in the cocoa shells that is harmful to both cats and dogs - though cats are less likely to eat it. I believe some manufacturers have removed this chemical from their product but I personally avoid using cocoa mulch's on a common sense basis of 'better safe than sorry.