Just occurred to me maybe I should ask this. Marco (6 month old rottie) is absolutely obsessed with finding and eating acorns when I take him outside. We have 10 acres, about two of which are yard with scattered hardwoods, so there's millions of them. There's no way I'm going to get them all up. It hasn't seemed to effect him in any way but I thought maybe I should ask if there's any health concerns with this.
Acorns are in fact pretty toxic. At least to cattle IME.
Most likely he'll feel a little sick from eating them and stop. At the moment they are novel. Plus they plunk down unexpectedly, sometimes bouncing.
Sounds like you'll have a ton of squirrels! He'll love that.
Wow, he's been doing this for at least a month and no signs of any problems. Poops are normal and everything. Any suggestions on how to stop him from eating them? Yes, by the way, we do have lots of squirrels and he wants to chase them badly.
Jodi Moen Webboard User Reg: 12-28-2010
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One of my horses got addicted to acorns and I let him eat them, found out later acorns are very high in tannic acid and can cause liver and kidney failure. I'd probably stop him from eating them. My horse was fine but definitely seemed addicted to them.
My animals are not "like" family, they ARE family.
Country dogs need to figure some stuff out for themselves IMO. If the acorns make him sick he will stop eating them.
My dog ate walnuts for a long time. He doesn't eat them anymore.
O.K. so we also have a 3 1/2 year old female lab that literally inhales socks if she get ahold of them. No chewing just swallows them whole. The vet said that dogs, usually labs, that do this, never learn. They will continue to always do it even though it makes them sick. And sure enough, she did it two more times after the first time. So, how are the acorns any different? Why would Marco learn not to eat them if the make him sick? Thinking back, there have been two times in the past month or so that he vomited what looked exactly like milk. No other symptoms of anything, acted fine, ate fine, poops fine, etc. So I wonder if that was from the acorns.
Anyone know how I can stop him from doing this? I obviously can't stop taking him outside.
No, he's on leash at all times, since I can't let him run or jump while his leg is healing. I know it may seem easy to stop him from eating them on leash, but he does need to sniff to find his place to pee or poop. It's hard to know wether he's sniffing for that, or to find the acorns. Sometimes I can stop him, sometimes I can't.
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Acorns
#366430 - 09/09/2012 07:18 AM 
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