Obsessive grass eating by lab, and the inevitable vomiting

[AnonymousBird]

My 6yo female lab is obsessively eating grass and the young wheat crop in the field where we walk. Even first thing in the morning when she is desperate for a wee, she will stop and guzzle grass before stopping to wee. It has become almost compulsive. Inevitably, if I am not quick enough to stop her, sometime later, she poos it out (which is a struggle) or vomits it all up. For fear of giving TMI, her poo is otherwise "normal". No diarrhoea

She is eating normally, the same food she has eaten since being a fairly young dog and in all other respects is well, behaving and exercising as normal. She gets the odd titbit, but really not very much as we are so careful with her weight.

I know people say they eat grass to make themselves vomit, but seeing as she is apparently quite well (other than the self-inflicted vomiting), I don't understand why she wants to make herself vomit?

Yes, I know you will probably say take her to see a vet, but I just thought I might canvass opinion first as our one and only vet is not close by, hard to get an appointment at and is very expensive.

TIA.

I think its normal for labs to eat grass and other vegetation, esp at this time of year. Always assumed there must be something in it they need, or perhaps they just like the taste. There are loads of labs in the park in the the mornings and its like a herd of cows grazing .

Mine doesn't vomit, although he may gag and bring up a bit that goes down the wrong way and he sometimes has to spend a bit longer than usual pooing v long bits of grass out.

our 2 eat grass all the time. sometimes its like having 2 cows out for a walk. they wonder roumd chewing and eating grass! they even got all the dogs in the field we walk at doing it! no harm done

My lab eats grass too. She never has strange poos and never vomits. It seems to do her no harm at all

Same here, my 19 month lab is teaching the other dogs to do the same in the woods. There is a special patch of young spring grass he always makes a bee line for and stays there for many minutes. Like a drug. No vomits and no change in poo either apart from a greenish tinge in his final poo of the day!

The vomiting is really grim, four times in total yesterday, all full of grass.

Like a drug - yes, that is it. Totally obsessive by my lab, this morning she chewed grass, did her wee, chewed grass whilst weeing (not easy!) and then tried to chew all the grass on the very short trot home. I am putting her on a lead now which is really annoying as she nearly pulls my arms out to get to the flippin grass!

Her breakfast has stayed put so far, but minimal grass ingestion to day so far. Once she has had her walk and lots more grass it could be a different story....

My lab does this too, we get nice sausage shaped vomitty parcels of grass left for us.

I googled this a while ago. According to the article I read - can't remember who wrote it but she was a dog expert apparently - there are two types of grass: the one they eat to make them vomit and wide grass that they eat for pleasure.

She wrote that the dog will rush to eat the vomiting grass but will calmly search out the wide grass until it finds the nicest bits.

So if your dog is eating obsessively OP and making herself vomit a lot I think I'd be inclined to go to the vet.

I was watching my dog today and it's almost like watching a cow graze with the same sort of tongue wrapping around the grass method. She loves grass and never vomits after eating it.

Hairball? I have a small dog with fine hair and I wonder if she grooms herself, gets a kind of hairball and then eats the grass to make herself puke....