Eating Tree twigs, branches and bark

[Safi]

Sooooo .. Safi has been doing this for as long as I can remember and I have tried to get her to stop/drop it/pry it out of her mouth when I can. It has become a big game to her now and she will keep her distance from me until she has chewed it up and eaten it. It doesnt seem to have hurt her as she will occasionally have funny looking poops or will regurgitate a small pile of wood chunks and bile (last night she did that at 3am on our nice wool rug) Usually the horking up happens only every 2-3 months.
I notice quite a few other dogs do it as well .. any insight on this? I keep thinking of buzzards who eat pebbles to help digestion Also kind of wondering if she is just getting hungry on the walks she is doing this on. Thankfully she doesnt go for the hardwoods.

At least she didnt keep up her puppy habit of eating pebbles

Steve

[Ari_RR]

Same here.. But, at 16 months old, Ari Does this much less then he used to. It's now an exception rather then the rule. When he goes after a stick - I don't try to wrestle it from him, it's his now and his protective of his stick, so I try to lure him away.. Get him to chase me, for example.

But I also noticed this. We often go to nature parks for walk - trails, trees, lots of sticks to eat..  And we also go to the woods behind the back yard - a quick toilet trip early morning or late evening. So, when on the trail in a park - he never goes after sticks. Totally consumed by chasing different scents around.  But he does that sometimes in the woods behind the backyard... Which leads me to think that when he tries to eat a stick - it's out of boredom, more then anything else....

[Safi]

I would have guessed at boredom as well, but she has actually stopped playing with another dog long enough to munch a twig down and then resume play. Walking through the dog park today it looks like wood eating is pretty common in several dogs there. The only real damage she has done to herself so far has been a chunk of wood lodged between two molars near the gum line which I removed with a pair of tweezers.

Steve

[rrbylexus]

I chalk it up to dogs just being dogs.

Pam

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[heiditr]

Steve, that sounds like Nia  However she is quite fond of grass and plants too. She even has a favorite which she eats whenever she can find it. Luckily, she never eats to much, so no throwing up during the night.
Also, we have a patch of dirt in the yard that all dogs eat from. Even visiting dogs stop to eat. It must be something really good tasting minerals in it 
As Pam said; dogs are dogs 

[TDprange]

Mine like to chew on sticks and bark. However, I have never seen her actually eat any of it.

Trent

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