Bramble Eating Sp[ringer Spaniel

[nelnel]

Hi my 3 year pold Springer Spaniel has started to eat brambles whenever I take her for a walk. Is this common or has anyone any idea why she would do this?

nelnel

[logman]

Hi nelnel, I've not heared of dogs eating brambles before but i can think of one or two possibilities for this behaviour ie - Animals such as fox, deer, cats will often scent mark on black berry bushes to mark what they see as "their" teretory and others ie dogs may pee on it to mask the scent with their own, i wonder if its this animal smell thats attracting your dog to eat it ??

Or Maybe he just likes the taste of bramble ? But what ever thr reason, i think it would be wise to discourage it, as the sharp thorns could obviously cause damage to his/her mouth/ throat.

My dogs a grass eater, he seems to know instinctivly to only go for a particular type of grass, dogs often do this to purge themselves of worms, wheather they have them or knot, thats why i think its a good idea to keep up a regular wormming programme..

[Snappy]

Dogs are omnivores so they would eat fruit in the wild, mainly from the stomach contents of herbivores they killed. Although there's no harm in the brambles themselves, logman is right about the thorns!

[nelnel]

Thnaks for the ideas. She does only seem to eat the leaves - so far anyway! so no problem with thorns, she does also eat grass and I thought it might be a similar thing or maybe a vitamin deficiency. But then again it mght just be that she likes the taste.