Is it a dog or a cow?

[luna-tic]

I recently looked after a friends dog for a few days and while out walking his dog was eating clumps of grass.Now I've seen canines eat a few stems but not great big lumps of the green stuff.Why do they do this?
Is it medicinal or just a nutrition based problem?

[princesssazi]

ok this is quite gross but i think dogs do it to make themselves sick. If they have eaten something and have a stomach upset then they eat the grass to bring up what they ate earlier. This gets it out their system and they feel better so yeah its a kind of medicine i suppose!

[wolf63]

my dog loved eating grass. I bought some seeds and he had a little plant pot full in the house for night-time munchies.

If taken in excess, as princesssazi says, it is used to calm a stomach problem or to make them sick.

[lankeela]

Mine often eat the rough surfaced couch grass when out for a walk. They tend to all eat at the same time too so I doubt it is any sickness that makes them do it, maybe just a way of cleansing their throats/stomachs.

Only occasionally do they then bring up some green bile.

[cyberfraggle]

yep, both our dogs eat grass, sometimes I'll notice one of them eating a lot of it and then he's sick, so I think it does have some part to play in that, but otherwise I think they just like it, something a bit different to dry food:) or just greedy.

[jillie05]

My dog grazes like a cow!! He has a history of stomach ulcers and so I think he does it to relieve any pain as apparently it helps medicate a bad gut, I think the myth that dogs eat it and it makes them sick is because of this, a dog that feels sick would be sick anyway but they eat grass to help with the discomfort.

[luna-tic]

After looking at his food I'm not surprised that most dogs go for grass as a healthy option. Canines may have always included grass as part of their diet either for health reasons or just because it tastes nice to them but they didn't always eat spray-dried beef extract coating on bits of cereal biscuit laden with salt so they have to drink four litres of water after every mouthful of food.
If humans have the traffic light nutrition required daily amount coding on their food then why hasn't the bags of doggy nosh?