I have a grazer as well. She likes going to the big park because then she gets a wide selection of grasses to chose from. While the other dogs run around and play, Mercy munches on blades of green while we moo at her. Sometimes when we drive past cows in a field and she's in the car, we'll say 'look Mercy, it's your family!' She's also REALLY happy about horses after she discovered that they like to eat grass, too. I have to get a picture of them standing side by side with their heads buried in the tall stuff.

It's extremely rare that she vomits after eating the grass. It's also rare that I see the grass in her poop. It's equally as rare that the grass makes her have diarrhea. I do believe her recent illness was caused by eating contaminated grass. They spray pesticides and fertilizer around here, and after eating grass she was unable to have a normal stool for about a week. She's not allowed to eat the grass here. We have to walk down the street for grazing.

Not sure if it's related but you may find it of interest.

My puppy eats horse poo like it is crack!! I was quite worried, but she is completely healthy. I was at the vets last week and asked about this, she said some dogs just love to do it, and that it is perfectly healthy, and not to worry.

Since I've stopped obsessing so much about it, the puppy is less 'manic' about eating the poop, but still eats it everyday, and goes in search of fresh clumps.... :-) mmm

She also eats a bit of fresh grass and bits of dirt, but definitely prefers the poop.

I suppose it is just roughage .. The vet also said that not all dogs grow out of it - but if otherwise healthy then it is no problem (just NO licking my face afterward!!). I suppose it all depends on whether the grass/dirt are causal with regard to the loose stools in your dogs' case.

All dogs seem to do it to some degree so IMO it has to be some what natural. Zuki and Keiko like grass, sometimes more than other times.

What was the reason for the Limited Ingredient food? Is there a problem with a protein with one of them? A food sensitivity?

You feel quite sure that they exhibited this pica on all foods? No food change was more-or-less concurrent with the new increased incidence?

Logan had poop problems on and off from the time he was a puppy, and for a period of time he also had skin problems. My GP vet did testing for both the digestive and skin issues but everything she did came out negative and she admitted she was stumped.

Out of desperation, I took him to a well-regarded holistic vet in my area. This vet convinced me Logan had to have the expensive blood allergy testing. This was before I joined this forum, learned about Whole Dog Journal, etc., and I know now that blood testing for allergens is generally considered to be ineffective (not to mention a huge amount of wasted money!).

The testing from this holistic vet came back with a whole list of foods that he was supposedly allergic to, and bottom line is there was really no kibble on the market that didn't have at least one or two of those ingredients, so on the vet's advice, I went to the home-cooked diet. (He is a vet that is also okay with raw. He said it would be fine either cooked or raw.)

Logan's skin condition has cleared up for the most part. I actually am more inclined to believe now that it may have been a sensitivity to the prong collar. I have heard that some dogs are sensitive to the metals (nickel, I think). I rarely use the prong anymore, though I notice, when I do use it, the hair under his neck starts to get thin again.

Sorry, I'm trying not to get too far off topic here, but I don't want to leave out anything that may be relevant. So after a year of doing the home-cooked diet, I couldn't do it anymore, and since I had come to believe the allergy testing was probably bogus anyway, I decided to try him back on kibble, but from previous experience with kibble, I knew that his poop problems would always seem to be worse the longer the ingredient list got. That, and trying to avoid at least some of the things I was told he was allergic to, is the reason I have tried to stick to limited ingredient kibbles.

They have always very occasionally nibbled on fresh shoots of grass, but since about the middle of this summer, it started to increase and became the obsession with entire clods of grass/dirt/mud. It was also over the summer that I started to reintroduce kibble into the diet. Coincidence? I don't know. They didn't eat grass/dirt like this before when they were on kibble, before I ever went to the home-cooked diet.

Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

First, just to be fully clear about a side issue:

"This was before I joined this forum .... and I know now that blood testing for allergens is generally considered to be ineffective (not to mention a huge amount of wasted money!).

The testing from this holistic vet came back with a whole list of foods that he was supposedly allergic to."

I just want to add emphasis.


There is no "generally" about the uselessness of blood tests for dogs for food allergies. There is no test to I.D. food allergens for dogs (so far) except a strict elimination diet.

QUOTE: Blood Testing: There is no evidence that blood tests are accurate for the diagnosis of food allergies. Veterinary dermatologists insist that there is no merit in these tests whatsoever in the diagnosis of food allergies. The only way to accurately diagnose food allergies is with a food trial as detailed above. While the intradermal skin testing is excellent for diagnosing atopy (inhalant allergies) it is ineffective for food allergies. While specialized blood tests can be used to help in the diagnosis of atopy, they have no benefit in diagnosing food allergies. In our review of all the current books and articles on veterinary dermatology and allergies, we could not find a single dermatologist that endorsed anything other than the food trial as an effective diagnostic aid. If you want to diagnose and treat food allergies you must do a food trial. END from Doctors Foster & Smith at http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2&aid=143

They have always very occasionally nibbled on fresh shoots of grass, but since about the middle of this summer, it started to increase and became the obsession with entire clods of grass/dirt/mud. It was also over the summer that I started to reintroduce kibble into the diet. Coincidence? I don't know. They didn't eat grass/dirt like this before when they were on kibble, before I ever went to the home-cooked diet.

And when they were on kibble before, back when they did NOT exhibit this level of dirt/grass eating, was it the same kibble? Or did this pretty much burst into the present full-blown obsession with the current kibbles? (I'm trying to verify what looks like a pattern from here, but also to find out if the L.I. kibble has justification.)

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

First, just to be fully clear about a side issue:

"This was before I joined this forum .... and I know now that blood testing for allergens is generally considered to be ineffective (not to mention a huge amount of wasted money!).

The testing from this holistic vet came back with a whole list of foods that he was supposedly allergic to."

I just want to add emphasis.


There is no "generally" about the uselessness of blood tests for dogs for food allergies. There is no test to I.D. food allergens for dogs (so far) except a strict elimination diet.

Understood and agreed. I was just trying to express my feelings about my experience with that particular vet in a neutral way. 'Nuff said.

 Quote: Cheri Grissom

... Understood and agreed. I was just trying to express my feelings about my experience with that particular vet in a neutral way. 'Nuff said.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

They have always very occasionally nibbled on fresh shoots of grass, but since about the middle of this summer, it started to increase and became the obsession with entire clods of grass/dirt/mud. It was also over the summer that I started to reintroduce kibble into the diet. Coincidence? I don't know. They didn't eat grass/dirt like this before when they were on kibble, before I ever went to the home-cooked diet.

And when they were on kibble before, back when they did NOT exhibit this level of dirt/grass eating, was it the same kibble? Or did this pretty much burst into the present full-blown obsession with the current kibbles? (I'm trying to verify what looks like a pattern from here, but also to find out if the L.I. kibble has justification.)

Prior to ever going on the home-cooked diet, back at a time when I was having poop and skin problems with Logan, but NOT grass-eating problems, I did use Natural Balance, but at the time it was the Bison and Sweet Potato formula. It was the last brand of kibble I used back then, before the home-cooked diet, and the one he seemed to do the best on of all the brands I had tried previously. That is why, when I decided to go back to kibble this summer, I wanted to go back to Natural Balance, but I'm using Chicken and Sweet Potato instead of Bison and Sweet Potato because they have changed their formulas a little and the Bison formula now includes some other ingredients I'm not crazy about, pea protein and potato protein. Those aren't in the Chicken formula.

The Earthborn Holistic is something I just started using over this past summer. I believe it is a fairly new entry into the market, and I happened to meet a representative of the company one day, we started talking, she gave me some samples, my dog didn't get bad poop from it, so I've been using it ever since.

I'm really testing my memory here, but some of the brands I know I used previously, when they weren't eating grass obsessively, were Canidae (before their formula switch), Eagle Pack Holistic, Solid Gold, Innova, Evo and Merrick. Logan had bad poop on all of these.