Dog food or folly

Dear Fisher,

My name is Shiloh, I am a 1.5 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and I love to pick up things off the floor.

Usually they are things my owners can’t see, and I pick them up so quickly they can’t get it back from me! I find great fun in this! This makes my owners very upset! They do try and catch me, and when they tell me to drop it, I swallow it instead. I think this is a fun game, but they worry that I’ll choke, or worse, get poisoned. How can I break this addiction!? HELP!

Shiloh

Dear Shiloh,

I can tell from your letter that you like to have fun and are quite impish at times. That is all well and good, but causing worry to those who care for you is not in your best interest. You are not alone in your addiction to picking things up off the floor and swallowing them, but you do stand out in that you seem to know this is a very bad idea.

I have seen stories of dogs swallowing multiple pieces of underwear, flip-flops, cartons of butter, and even knives. One of the scariest is the ingestion of a human’s medication. Because you are on the small side, you may not go for the larger items, but all things being relative, small items can be just as destructive to your internal systems. Pathogens and bacteria are found in all sorts of very clean houses. Ingestion happens without your even knowing it, but if you have ever witnessed one of your humans going through the “throws” of flu, you know what you can expect. That could cure your addiction in a hurry!

Your first task is to take time out and consider the source of your behavior. Are you stressed, bored, or just in need of attention? Remember, there are both negative and positive types of attention. If you are bored or stressed, extra long walks and more play time could help. If that does not help, your humans may just resort to confining you to a pen, allowing them to go about their day with a lot less worry.

There are other ideas that are much more fun. Lore I. Haug, DVM, MS, DACVB, of Texas A & M’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital wrote a paper entitled, “Environmental Enrichment for Dogs”. Dr. Haug states, “Pet dogs on average spend less than 15 minutes per day eating because they do not have to forage for food.” Aha! Do you see the problem here? I vote for boredom!

Now, read on for some of Haug’s excellent suggestions and share them with your humans:

*Feed the dog from a Buster Cube or Roll-A-Treat ball.
*Divide portions of the dog’s meal into small Tupperware containers and hide them around the house for the dog to find.
*Build the dog a sand box either by sectioning off a 4-5 foot square area in your yard or buying a child’s wading pool and filling it with sand and dirt.
*Buy the dog a child’s wading pool and fill it with water. If the dog enjoys both water and digging, you can alternate the substrate in the pool each week.
*Place vegetables or fruits (e.g. melons, apples, lettuce, squash, watermelon, carrots, celery, etc. out in the yard or you can bury them in the sand box or float them in the wading pool.

If that does not help you, I encourage you to visit The Most Shocking Things Ever Found Inside of a Dog’s Stomach. This is for you to read. Your humans already know the risks.

Your friend,

Fisher

published in tbt* Tampa Bay