Doodle & Dirt

[Kaye guelfo]

Hi All!

I have a new goldendoodle (75% retriever/25% poodle).  She just turned 5 months old and is the light of my life.  However, she loves to eat dirt, wood, and grass.  She loves to eat the grass that comes off the lawnmower after it's dried in clumps, and shes constantly digging and eating the dirt.  We have firewood by our back door and she will get in the pile and bite the wood and eat whatever she can bite off. She's an indoor dog so she only does this when she goes out to potty or play with my other dog.  I stop her everytime i see her do it, but she's quick, and when she see's me coming, she gobbles even faster.  Is this normal?  Is there something missing in her diet?  She eats Taste of the Wild puppy food and is very food motivated.  I feed her 4 cups a day (the bag says 3) but she acts like she's always hungry.  Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.  I've never had a dog do this before....

Thanks!

Kaye

[Julie, Eloise & Beasley]

I had no idea dogs would eat any and everything in the yard - until I brought Eloise home.  She would try to eat grass, leaves, sticks, mulch, deer & rabbit poop, plants, dirt, rocks...you get the picture!  She was always supervised but oh-so-sneaky and FAST!  And just like your girl, she tried to get more in her mouth as fast as she could when I corrected her.  Ellie almost got a crazy look in her eyes trying to gobble up whatever I was telling her not to.  Ugh! 

Thankfully, she's either outgrown the need to eat everything in the backyard, or all my corrections finally sank in.  I constantly told her "leave it" and "drop it," and I think she also started to associate the yard with playing fetch - instead of it being her own personal buffet.  But, she still can't resist sticks when she sees them, and she usually spits them out (but I still watch her like a hawk).