I have a 5 month old Labrador puppy who likes to eat everything .... rocks, sticks, bark, you name it and she will try it! She still requires 24/7 supervision. I still have to use play pens in the yard to keep her confined to the grass and away from the crushed rock paths and mulch garden beds.... so she is yet to have room to run in our yard for this very reason. The problem is, she has in the last month or two turned to the grass!! And I don’t just mean casual grazing, I mean tearing up the lawn and consuming ALL off the pieces... she goes for the roots mostly as they are very crunchy. This is kikuyu grass and as you can see from the image the roots are quite thick. She will pull the roots out and consume them, and (as they are not digested) they come out the other end the same way . Some days she even struggles to defecate due to the sheer volume of grass roots in her poop, and that’s only from a 10-15 min session on the rare occasion I look away to have a shower or something and she has a field day. If I left her with access to grass all day I don’t know what will happen to her health-wise. I’m not only concerned about our lawn (we are in a rental), but I’m mostly concerned about it causing an obstruction or bloat due to the thick roots building up (they don’t turn to mush when eaten like grass blades do, but stay thick and stiff as they pass through her gastrointestinal tract). I’ve had three months off of University and work during which I’ve been at home with her watching her constantly. At her age my older dog was able to be left with free roam of house and a dog door to the yard, I had hoped the 5 month old would be able to be let out with access to the yard when I go back to my usual schedule in a couple of weeks as I will be gone for 5-6 hrs at a time and I can’t be home to let her out to toilet as much as she needs. I’ve tried exercising her more and giving her treat toys and standard chew toys but they don’t completely stop the behaviour. “Leave it” works but only when I’m watching her, she has learnt to do it when I’m not around.. so now I have had to close off access to the doggy door for her and my adult resident Labrador... which is confusing to my adult lab as she is not accustomed to not being able to let herself out as she pleases to enjoy the sunshine and go toilet. I certainly hope she grows out of it, currently it looks like it’s getting worse. I’m curious if it’s because she is teething... Has anyone else had this happen with their young dog? Is it dangerous to let her consume so much grass roots? I’ve asked on reddit and only got the response saying “it’s fine” and that “it will help with their stomach”... which is so very vague and I’m not sure if I can trust that response lol.
Hi Laura and welcome to the forum. Eating rubbish is common and many puppies do this out of boredom, we have an article about it here which might be helpful. With a few puppies this desire to consume harmful items can be quite an obsession. Some vets call it pica, or morbid appetite. And it can definitely endanger the dog’s life. All puppies explore with their mouths and most puppies spit out what they are playing with once they are bored with it. Unfortunately puppies with morbid appetite seem to lack this safety behavior and their aim is actually to swallow stuff. It’s important that you don’t take things off puppies when they have them in their mouths, as even normal puppies will quickly learn to swallow the things they have found if humans keep taking them away. It’s also important that dogs displaying signs of morbid appetite are closely supervised. It sounds like you are already aware of this part. That means keeping the puppy occupied and engaged with you whenever you are near the items that you know are attractive to her. Morbid appetite, or obsessive consumption of inedible objects, is very challenging to deal with. My cocker puppy started picking up and swallowing large quantities of tiny stones at an early age. She would literally scoop them up and swallow them on the run without hesitating. As her nose is always on the ground, we were unaware of what she was doing until large quantities of stones came out the other end. From that moment she was restricted to a playpen when toileting outdoors, on the lawn to begin with, then on concrete when she began to dig up and eat the grass. She would also consume anything she found in the house, coins, plastic, etc, that wasn’t nailed down - we have become much tidier! No-one seems to know for sure why this happens to some dogs and not others. I’ve not seen any evidence that teething is a cause. In our case our puppy was very ill with Giardia for several weeks despite repeated courses of antibiotics and panacur. So it may be that her illness played a part. But I’ve come across several cases over the years, especially in retrievers, and there is often no obvious reason. Have a chat with your vet, it may well be risky if she is consuming large quantities. Also your vet may have some useful input and would be able to rule out any other potential causes such as parasites, mineral deficiency etc There is light at the end of the tunnel. Eating rubbish is much more common in puppies than in older dogs. And if you can prevent the dog from indulging in the behavior they may well grow out of it. Several months on and our puppy seems to have lost interest in attempting suicide. I still wouldn’t leave her unsupervised in the garden, but I can now train and exercise her on grass and gravel without her trying to consume it. We focused on teaching a really fast response to a ‘drop it’ cue, using some excellent treats. So when she does pick something up, we can now usually get her to spit it out. And she has realized that there are much more fun things to be doing than eating all the time. So hang on in there. Have a chat with your vet, keep your puppy away from the grass when you can't supervise closely, and keep her really busy when she is outside. Good luck and let us know how you get on.
