Take care that your pet does not eat grass
that has been treated with fertilizer, pesticides or
herbicides.
Theories on this Behavior
Dogs are not known for being fussy eaters. Put it in your
dog's path and he'll gobble it up, whether it be table scraps,
garbage ... or grass.
Dogs are primarily carnivores (meat-eaters). Although they like
to eat meat, they can also survive on a well-balanced
vegetarian diet: Cats, on the other hand, may die without
animal protein. Like all living creatures, dogs need a
combination of fats, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins,
minerals, and water in a balanced diet that
provides enough calories to meet their daily needs.
We're not sure why your pup likes grass, although there have
been many theories offered. Primarily, dogs are descended from
wild canids (wolves and foxes), which ate the entire "kill" when
they hunted for food. Since they consumed many herbivores
(plant-eating animals), they wound up eating a lot of plants and
even berries found in the stomach and intestines of their prey.
Interestingly, carnivores tend to go for the stomach and its
contents first, so it's likely that dogs may eat grass because
they like it and it was once part of their normal diet.
Then there is the great mystery: Do dogs eat grass to make
themselves vomit? Or do they vomit because they eat the grass?
Most veterinarians believe that dogs eat grass simply because
they like it, and vomiting just naturally follows. When dogs eat
grass, the grass acts as an irritant and causes vomiting.
However, they may not be smart enough to use grass as a medicine
when they have an upset stomach. That said, one of us has seem a
dog with burrs stuck in his throat pounce on a Ficus plant and
voraciously start scoffing great scads of leaves until he threw
up, presumably in an attempt to dislodge the foreign material.
Some veterinarians believe that dogs eat grass because their
prepared diets are lacking in greens and so they eat grass. And
as some support of this contention, dogs sometimes seek out a
particular variety of grass to nibble.
No matter what the reason, your dog's "grass" habit is normal
behavior and you need not be concerned about it. A note of
caution, however: Take care that your pet does not eat grass
that has been treated with fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides.
This could cause stomach upset or even worse problems for your
dog.