# Eats grass and dirt



## Michelle4 (Dec 1, 2007)

Do your goldens eat mud and grass?
My 3 mo old pulls the grass out by the roots and eats it. Then digs in the mud and eats that too. :uhoh: I tried putting poop in the hole. She won't dig there any more, just makes a new hole.:doh: I told her I was going to give her a salad for dinner tonight. LOL


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## Oaklys Dad (Dec 28, 2005)

Hehehe you have a perfectly normal golden retriever puppy. When Oakly was a pup he would go absolutely nuts over certain clumps of grass, ripping and tearing like a maddog. :


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## Heidi36oh (Feb 27, 2007)

LOL, very normal, mine think it's funny to bring me the clumps of grass and dirt, and I have a very holey back yard, filled up 20 holes just last week. It will get better





























​*Santa and his Reindeer*​*
*


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## Michelle4 (Dec 1, 2007)

At least she is normal! Thanks.


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## bizzy (Mar 30, 2007)

Yep its normal like a toddler who has to put everything in their mouths


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## BeauShel (May 20, 2007)

You have a very normal puppy. Mine looks like a big cow chewing and tearing on my grass sometimes.


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## Celeigh (Nov 29, 2007)

I wish I had grass for 11 week old Fergus to focus on! It would be cheaper to replace. My whole backyard is not particularly dog friendly - mostly hardscape and lots of planting beds. He has ripped more plants clean out of the ground and plays tug of war with the long leafed varieties that he hasn't been able to rip out yet. Sigh. He's bitten off every rose bud and every flowering stalk that dared to show itself in autumn. He lays on top of other delicate plants and chews at their centers. Yesterday I called his name and he ran over pleased as punch to have a mouth totally full of pink flower petals. I wish I'd had the camera close!

I keep telling myself he'll grow out of it. I may be fooling myself, but it makes me feel better...


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## Lucky's mom (Nov 4, 2005)

For my own piece of mind, I kept Lucky on a leash till I was comfortable he had some judgement in what he was eating.


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## GardenPaws (Nov 28, 2007)

My boy Fire just turned 7 months and we still have the grass eating problem, UGH! He is Golden #6 and the previous ones never did that. I hope your all right about it stopping. It really hinders giving him freedom in the yard, we've got toys and bumpers but as soon as he gets cranked up playing he just starts destroying the grass. At this rate there will be now garden to have paws in!


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## Merlins mom (Jun 20, 2007)

GardenPaws said:


> My boy Fire just turned 7 months and we still have the grass eating problem, UGH! He is Golden #6 and the previous ones never did that. I hope your all right about it stopping. It really hinders giving him freedom in the yard, we've got toys and bumpers but as soon as he gets cranked up playing he just starts destroying the grass. At this rate there will be now garden to have paws in!


Merlin is 7 1/2 months and eats grass sometimes. Mostly he prefers to dig up what little grass we have and eat the dirt. He's a mess! LOL!


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## vrocco1 (Feb 25, 2006)

You have grass? (not for long).


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## Lucky's mom (Nov 4, 2005)

Even now Lucky grazes....and he seems to need it because when we had an ice storm that covered the grass for over three weeks he had anal gland problems. But when he was a puppy he went overboard and ate more then grass...


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## Tailer'sFolks (Feb 27, 2007)

Do your training NOW! Pups can make a habit, a bad habit, out of eating garden things! Some are poisonous, so you really do have to watch out for them...you are the human...my husband says that to me all the time..."You are the Human!" Good Luck!


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## Jo Ellen (Feb 25, 2007)

A few days ago, Daisy accidentally ingested some burrs. She was very uncomfortable and going into frequent hacking fits. She wanted to eat grass so I let her. It helped her and everytime she started hacking again, I let her out to eat grass again. 

I do believe that sometimes eating grass serves a very useful purpose for dogs, even if we don't know what that purpose is. She didn't throw up afterwards either, and I know it wasn't because her stomach was upset. She was just trying to relieve the discomfort in her throat and eating grass worked better for her than anything else I was trying.

I let Daisy graze any time she wants to, but she sticks to the grass, she doesn't eat any of my garden stuff ... well, except my strawberries :


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## goldensmum (Oct 23, 2007)

Quinn has just started to do that as well, he digs it up and then proudly brings it to me! (Little so and so). Hubby noticed the gaps in the grass the other day and i told him the squirrel has been burying his nuts - guess what? He fell for it!!!!! Now us pup owners know that they are normal.


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## Chaucer and Mom (Feb 26, 2007)

Garrett, my rescue, is estimated to be about four years old. There are days he grazes on dead grass; and then there are days he pulls up clumps of grass and dirty and tries to eat the whole thing. When I whistle for him to come in, he takes one last chomp and comes running to me with "dirt mouth." I don't think eating this has helped his anal glands one bit. They were full after three weeks this month!:yuck:


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## Michelle4 (Dec 1, 2007)

vrocco1 said:


> You have grass? (not for long).


Ha Ha Ha:banghead:


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## missmarstar (Jul 22, 2007)

Chaucer and Mom said:


> When I whistle for him to come in, he takes one last chomp and comes running to me with "dirt mouth."


 
ahhh the dreaded dirt mouth!! LOL Sam seems to loooooooove having dirt in his mouth, i don't get it.... i always try to get him to drink some water to wash the dirt out of his mouth and he'll go right back and get it full of dirt again! :yuck:


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## ladolce_98 (Dec 26, 2007)

*totally normal*

I have a golden and two labs and can tell you that they all do this all of the time. At first I was worried, but my vet said that sometimes there are minerals in the dirt and grass and they have a craving. Just the one thing to look out for is that they don't eat too much or they sometimes get a belly ache.


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## goldenboy_Flash (Jan 3, 2008)

*Grass eating, etc.*

Flash is going on 9 years old. In the summer he eats grass and rocks if he can get at them. IN the fall, it's the leaves. In the winter, it's snow. IN the spring, it's those helicopter seeds from the maple trees.

Why? Just because he can.

I will NOT let him eat rocks!


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## lgnutah (Feb 26, 2007)

Brooks ate more grass when he was a puppy than he does now. Now he selectively chooses one particular type of grass. He especially likes it in the spring or when it is growing fast (after a rain)


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## Ardeagold (Feb 26, 2007)

We have several dogs who graze. Lucy our Golden, Lucy our Toller and all of the Newfs. The Newfs kinda look like cows grazing in a pasture :lol:

I DO feed those dogs salad. And they like it. The others who aren't grass oriented, aren't salad oriented either.

And they're very picky about which blade of grass they eat. Only certain ones will do!


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## Merlins mom (Jun 20, 2007)

Michelle4 said:


> Do your goldens eat mud and grass?
> My 3 mo old pulls the grass out by the roots and eats it. Then digs in the mud and eats that too. :uhoh: I tried putting poop in the hole. She won't dig there any more, just makes a new hole.:doh: I told her I was going to give her a salad for dinner tonight. LOL


Boy did that first question make me laugh! Uh-huh a normal golden for sure! Merlin's almost 9 months and still does both. Not 20 minutes ago he was trying to eat a huge chunk of clay he dug up. Sigh.....I feel your pain!  LOL!


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## ladolce_98 (Dec 26, 2007)

*totally normal*

Not only will my golden do this, but my two labs do it also. I was a little worried about this when it first started so I inquired with our vet. He said that sometimes when a dog is lacking in a certain mineral the compensate by eating grass and dirt. It seems silly but that was his explanation. He said not to worry about it.


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## Farley Rocks! (Nov 15, 2007)

Our lab eats a lot of grass....some days he seems obsessed
 with it! Farley on the other hand - goes right for the 
poop, any type of wood and the dead rodents the neighborhood cats drag over. I would relish "dirt mouth".


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