Grazing Doodles

[Michele Follger]

Hi, I am just curious if any of your dood's eat grass. Sunny eats grass every day. Just the tall thick-leaved stuff that gets missed by the lawnmower. We don't use any chemicals on our lawn, so I don't worry about that. I just wondered if it is something they all do.

[Bentley, Michelle & David]

Bentley has eaten grass since the first moment he set foot in our backyard at 8 weeks - along with leaves, rocks, dirt, mulch and anything else he could find in the yard. It really worried us at first because he was almost obssessive about it. Since then he's learned to leave the rocks and mulch alone for the most part, but still enjoys plopping himself down at the backyard salad bar and munching on grass. He'll rip up a several clumps and then work through the pile between his paws.

He seems to handle it fine - he's never vomited because of it - though it is a little disappointing when the kids want to play with him in the yard and all he wants to do is graze...

[Suzann, Rosey & Bandit]

Mine do it and it makes them sick. Either throwing up or diarreah. So I try to stop them from doing it...

[Richard Crowe]

Holly eats grass also. She prefers the tender new blades of oxalis than pop out through our iceplant. We don't use chemicals on our lawn either so we don't worry about her culinary tastes. The amount she eats is negligible and doesn't seem to bother her digestive system. It may even be benefical to some degree. At least it doesn't seem to harm her.

There is an old wive's tale that dogs eat grass then their stomach is upset. Holly eats grass because she likes the taste.

One word of advice however. At one time, we parked our motorhome in a gravel RV storage lot. The owners used trained guard guards to protect the property and lost several of these dogs to cancer. They had a necropsy done on the last dog to die and found high levels of the chemicals from the weedkiller ROUNDUP.

Apparently, they sprayed ROUNDUP on the weeds poking through the gravel and their guard dogs ate the ROUNDUP covered weeds. That's just something to think about the next time you decide to rid your property of weeds using a chemical weed killer.

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

Sedona does seem to use grass (the green, backyard variety) for medicinal purposes. Occasionally, she'll refuse to eat her breakfast then "ask" to go outside. She'll graze on the grass, up-chuck what she'd just eaten, play with the cat for a few minutes, then go back inside. Within half-an-hour, she's eaten her breakfast and seems ready for the day.

[Michele Follger]

Thanks Everyone, I guess I'll let her keep eating it. Richard thanks for the heads-up on round-up.

[Tammy & Gracie]

Gracie eats grass daily. No issues whatsoever here...

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Grass is the one thing Lucy DOESN'T eat in the yard! Everything else is fair game... twigs, leaves, dirt, flowers... Sometimes she'll come in and cough off and on for hours, with something undoubtedly lodged in her throat. It always clears, but I do worry about her sometimes. Even got ready to take her to an emergency vet one late evening after a particularly bad coughing spell. That cleared on its own too. Lucy is only 9-1/2 mos. so I hope she grows out of it soon. When I take her outside (she doesn't have free reign to come and go as she chooses) I have to keep her engaged with play the entire time otherwise she goes looking for stuff to chew. She's gone so far as to pull branches off bushes for a twig to chew on. Crazy!

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

Every dog I have ever known (and cat) loves to eat grass.