A few months ago my dachshund, left alone for a few hours ate an entire peace lily. Not a leaf left.The plant had been in the same place for years, totally ignored by the previous dog and this one too, till this happened.
We spent a few days very worried as all available advice suggested he was likely to die of oxalic acid poisoning buggering his kidneys. Fortunately, he gave no appearance of any ill-effects at all. Maybe peace lilies vary in their oxalate content and we were just lucky.
This morning I came down to discover he'd found where I was rooting some yucca cuttings, had dragged one out and chewed it up. Info on the net suggests this may give him tummy upset but not so bad as the peace lily was supposed to be.
Reason for posting threefold. First as a warning. I'd simply not realised that dogs might eat houseplants. The label on the peace lily said 'not for consumption' but no real toxicity warning.
Secondly, does anyone have any idea why a dog would do this - especially something as tough as a yucca? He spends plenty of time in the garden and eats grass like most dogs do, its not that he doesn't have access to green stuff if he needs it. Do you think theres something missing in his diet or was it just boredom.
Thirdly, the garden... if he has a prediliction for eating plants other than grass, I'm now rather worried about leaving him in the garden (he loves sunbathing and gnaws his bones out there). After the peace lily incident I glyphosated the monkshood as I know thats a badly poisonous plant ... but there are other things like lily of the valley and foxgloves. He's shown no interest in those ... yet ... he did eat some of a meadowsweet cultivar and the previous dog liked pulmonaria leaves (both used in herbal medicine so presumably ok) ... but who knows what the little devil will sample next.