To ask people to please not leave wild bird food on the floor/within reach of dogs?

With my dogs back in the car I once nipped back into the woods with a bag of monkey nuts and left them on tree stumps that were 3/4ft high rather than scatter them on the ground.

A woman came striding over to me and demanded I stop because her grandson has a nut allergy!

Her grandson wasn’t with her and she was furious when I laughed at her and told her that his parents should be making sure their child doesn’t go around stealing food left out for birds and animals!

It’s the same principle for dogs and their owners to be responsible.

Re not having seen raisins in seed mixes, I think it may be more that they are (or used to be) one of the ingredients in ‘high energy pellets’.

Even dedicated feeding stations, raised up off the ground a bit for the ground feeders (they will hop up on a wall top or something raised up off the ground, they just wont feed from dangling swinging feeders!) will attract rats.

If people want to feed in public spots, it should be a raised feeder, and cleaned up every day to reduce rat attraction (you won't get rid of that entirely!).

Then it is easier to avoid non-target species getting the food, and keep things tidy. If people are just throwing food on the floor in random spots, that will be a rat haven!

In theory, teach dogs not to take food - however dogs are opportunistic scavengers we have NEVER selectively bred them not to be as it suits us very nicely that they will work for food - and many enrichment and training activities involve sniffing out food!

If food is only in certain, predictable spots, on feeding stations it is much easier to stop dogs grabbing a mouthful.

My concern with scattering bird feed around in public areas would be the amount of rats it would attract.

I have been a bird lover for 40 years and have never seen a bird seed mix that contains raisins. Sounds like this is someone making their own mix which is probably not great for birds unfortunately.

My walks are a bit like a MI5 mission to stop the dog eating anything and everything.

Quite.

A diet of mealworms is bad for them because it leeches calcium from their bones and can be debilitating. However, the odd mealworm isn’t an issue - plenty of the grubs a hedgehog can eat in the wild can be similar, and the important part is the variety of the diet to make sure all the hedgehog’s needs are met.

Giving a hedgehog a dinner of mealworms is like giving a child a meal of Haribo and thinking it would stand in for fruit and vegetables. A rare treat rather than a regular food.

Hedgehogs are fine around grapes and raisins, by the way. But they like cat food better.

I've never seen bird mix with raisins but I prefer birds to dogs anyway. 😉

I’m not sure you’re quite right. Hedgehogs apparently are very fond of mealworms, which aren’t good for them.
With dogs and raisins, it seems to be Russian roulette - some dogs may be immune, and/or only some grapes are problematic (afaik it’s still unclear if the problem is a fungus or suchlike which may or may not be on grapes rather than the fruit itself). I don’t think Darwinian survival mechanisms necessarily kick in in that sort of case.

Yanbu they should just put normal bird seed out, raisins are toxic to other animals too ☹️

The RSPB used to mark its seed mixes, high energy sprinkles etc if they were unsuitable for gardens with dogs because of raisins, but from a quick look at their website they’ve reformulated some (maybe all) so they’re dog-friendly - elderberries instead of raisins.

I’ll rephrase. Cats and hedgehogs are generally not so stupid as to eat things that are toxic to them. It’s a survival trait. A population that will snack on what poisons them doesn’t tend to last long.
Drinking something tasty that gives them
stomach upset it not a major issue unless it’s often.

Ground feeding birds obviously eat food that is on the ground (or low feeding stations). You can’t feed blackbirds somewhere too high for dogs. They just won’t eat it.

If you don’t want your dog eating things off the grass, keep her/him on a lead.

Hedgehogs and cats will absolutely eat things that are bad for them. Milk is really bad for both of them, but the vast majority of them will happily eat it.

I have a low rider and we do walks where it’s essentially me surveying everything two feet ahead of us ready for the “ah ah!” 😂

My previously dog was trigger fast when it came to snaffling a chicken bone though

I have just read they are not toxic to hedgehogs.

Haha have you ever met a greedy dog. They are like lightning. My dog would have to be muzzled on every walk to completely avoid snaffling. She's on a lead but still grabs stuff. The problem is they smell things humans don't see. Muzzling for every walk would be my only option and she wouldn't enjoy her walks.

I never knew they were toxic to hedgehogs! I know blackbirds and the rest of the thrush family are supposed to like them and they are ground feeding birds so maybe this is why it's been scattered around. However I agree with other pp never seen raisins in shop bought bird food.

The area I'm talking about is residential (paths with greenery either side) leading to the popular dog walking fields. Lots of off lead dogs but also roaming cats.

I was with you, OP, until you said about off lead dogs in residential areas.

We had someone complain that their dog had been taken to vet having eaten sheep droppings after they had been wormed with ivermectin which is highly toxic to dogs. She wanted me to compensate her.

The dog was in our sheep's field which has no public access. It had been off lead on a bridleway running alongside the sheep's field & had strayed into our field.

Completely the owners fault & actually she was the one committing an offence (livestock worrying)

The majority by the looks of things!

Exactly this.

Lobbing any old food around within reach of non-intended species is about as thick as the idiots dragging their dogs around the pavements in 30c heat.

Absolutely no thought put into it whatsoever. They're like toddlers acting on impulse.

Engage brain people, if you're fortunate enough to possess one.

ETA and my dogs are always walked on the lead.

Don’t bank on it!
My friends Labrador died after they were in France and it gobbled a load of grapes by the side of a field. They tried to get the dog to stop eating the grapes and come back to them but it didn’t have a great recall. There is a lesson there!

Really I think it is only dogs. Other mammals seem to know what foods are dangerous for them. I am of the view that wild birds are in decline and we should put them before any off lead or untrained dog.

So does my dog if he can snaffle them. Not all dogs find them toxic.

I know that 🙄