Have you ever been out for a walk with your family dog, and noticed it munching on grass? Every dog owner has made this observation at some point, and may have felt concerned for the wellness and wellbeing of their dog. Dogs are not natural herbivores, they are natural carnivores, and therefore the sight of your dog effectively grazing can be quite disconcerting. So why do dogs ever want to eat grass?
First of all, dogs are scavengers – although their main source of food is meat, they love to eat anything that they can find. If you have ever seen a dog rooting through a bin or digging a hole and eating anything tasty that they find along the way. Dogs like to eat and will do so to a far greater extent than fulfilling their basic dietary requirements.
Dogs can’t scavenge in the way that their ancestors can, so they seek out alternative forms of food, and one of those is grass. Dogs have also been known to eat plants and other vegetable matter such as berries and shrubs.
When dogs have an upset stomach, they also naturally gravitate towards eating grass, as the grass tickles the throat and the stomach and makes them want to vomit. This is effectively a way of the dog making itself sick on purpose in order to make themselves throw up.
You’ll also find that sometimes your dog nibbles on grass a little bit, as they also enjoy the texture and the ‘roughage’ that it provides, but in other cases they really gulp down the grass and eat it with great enthusiasm, only to throw up afterwards.
Experts say that there is no danger in allowing your dog to eat grass, and in fact it can contain some really important nutrients for your dog.