Can carrots jump out of the ground ?

[alan refail]

Maybe it's just the carrots acting daft. After all, the Welsh for carrots is moron

[Ricard with an H]

Hooyay, finally got to the bottom of this problem. It is my dog, four times now I caught her making a bee-line to the gap in the beds where the carrot has been lifted and twice I caught her eating carrot. I didn't actually catch her pulling them out so in law she isn't guilty.

Old Welsh proverb.
If it quacks, it has webbed feet, waddles when it walks and has a longish yellow beak, it's probably a duck.

Sorry Alan, couldn't help myself.

[Nature's Babe]

Animals know what is good for them and have wider requirements than we think Ricard. As a chilld I remember we had to find the free range eggs before our spaniel did ! A lot of filler crap goes into tinned dog food, not many veg ! I used to make my dogs food, she ate with relish though small dogs can be finnicky - some cheap meat or pet mince rice, and mixed veg. If I get another dog I will start them with home made.

[Ricard with an H]

We love our little spaniel lady, like having a child. And she's welcome to an occasional carrot, problem is she started going to the raised beds every-time I let her out and she's out a lot. Also she loves broccoli and i'm growing it.

We stopped giving her broccoli because it makes her loose and someone told us broccoli isn't good for dogs though I don't believe everything i'm told.

I have two more batches of carrot sown, one sown direct into the stony soil rather than being transplanted into it and one crop sown into a 50/50 mix of peat and NH peat-free.

I read somewhere that carrot likes sandy soil, I can't do sandy soil yet but hopefully my soil in the beds will improve a little next year then every year a little more improvement.

[peter]

Dogs do NOT know what's good for them. They'll eat until they cannot physically cram any more in. They'll scavenge all sorts of rubbish, discarded food on pavements, roadkill, whatever is within reach at home........

[Ricard with an H]

I'm afraid Peter is right.

I used to think animals know what is good or bad for them and this extended to dogs.

Chewing a rubber ball and swallowing the rubber killed a dog. My dog has eaten so much cow-poo that she almost immediately evacuated it from her rear-end in a painful display of stomach upheaval then dashes back to the cow-pens for more. Same with sheep poo, she used to eat coal and slugs.

if you drop something on the floor in the kitchen and she's about she'll eat it without considering what it is.

First thought were that we aren't feeding her correctly but we are feed quality food in the right amount.

Humans go through a period during winter that translated from the Welsh goes something like, "Precautionary-winter-lard-up". My dog is doing it all the time. Survival stuff Eh.

[vegpatchmum]

I'll never forget the look on our old Greyhounds face (no longer with us) the day she 'caught' a toad and decided it would make a tasty snack .

Suffice to say the toad came off best and she never tried to catch another

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[Nature's Babe]

Agreed some dogs especially the larger variety can eat like dustbins, however not all dogs do. My shitzu maintained a steady weight all her life and would leave her food till she was hungry. There are some foods that don't suit their digestion check with a vet for your particular pet. We once had a great Dane with a very delicate stomach, believe me it's no fun when they get a runny tummy !

[Ricard with an H]

You just reminded me, when we first settled our spaniel into early-adulthood she hadn't given up the habit of eating her poo-poo's. I called the nutritionist and learnt there was actually a name for this.

Copra-fagea.

I'm not sure of the correct spelling and my dictionary doesn't recognise the word so I split it up with hyphens.

Not only that, she was actually eating twice the amount they recommended for a ten kilo dog and not putting on weight, plus she was scrounging. We assumed it's because she is very active compared to most suburban/city dogs and whilst she isn't a working spaniel she is a farm dog in the free-range sense.

She seven years old now, 11 kilos of hard-packed muscle, skinny waist and still scrounging.

[WestHamRon]

You just reminded me, when we first settled our spaniel into early-adulthood she hadn't given up the habit of eating her poo-poo's. I called the nutritionist and learnt there was actually a name for this.

Copra-fagea.

I'm not sure of the correct spelling and my dictionary doesn't recognise the word so I split it up with hyphens.

Not only that, she was actually eating twice the amount they recommended for a ten kilo dog and not putting on weight, plus she was scrounging. We assumed it's because she is very active compared to most suburban/city dogs and whilst she isn't a working spaniel she is a farm dog in the free-range sense.

She seven years old now, 11 kilos of hard-packed muscle, skinny waist and still scrounging.

http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/az/c/coprop ... -8niJEn9LM

[peter]

Todays Mail on Sunday has a book review, Zoobiquity by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz & Kathryn Bowers, which amused me with the following passage.

"Mark Edwards, an animal nutritionist in California, noted; 'We are all hardwired to consume resources in excess of daily requirements. I can't think of a species that doesn't.'
When presented with unlimited food, domestic species, including dogs, cats, sheep, horses, pigs and cattle, eat nine to 12 meals a day."

I do understand what NB meant, animals will often seek out something that addresses a deficiency in their normal diet, like the Kenyan elephants that travel nearly half a mile into a cave system to pick out with their tusks the salt-rich clay and eat it.

[Ricard with an H]

Maybe some species of animal are hard-wired to go looking for a nutrient they are deficient in without understand why.

All my dogs life she has been fed on "Veterinarian" inspired/designed food that is hyped to include everything they need yet when I first made an enquiry to the food nutritionist she intimated the dog my me lacking in a nutrient and that it's quite normal for dogs to eat purifying material, I suggested this trait may have been bred out of most dogs after years of domesticity. That sort-of ended the conversation.

I doubt my dog steals my carrot for the want of beta carotene, she 'likes-em' because they're crunchy.

I once did a test to find out how much food my dog would eat rather than the 100 grams daily requirement, she eat a kilo of food before she started to slow down. Then I found out that dry food in those quantities is dangerous because it swells inside the dogs stomach.

Not very smart, Eh.

[Ricard with an H]

Now my dog is stealing Kohlrabi and eating it. Kohlrabi is like the middle bit of the thick stems of broccoli.

I only grew it for the nostalgia because my mother used to grow it, it's ok but I wont grow it again. problem is, my dog loves broccoli and now Kohlrabi but i've told it isn't good for dogs.

It gives her the squits, maybe thats why it isn't good for them.

Whilst i'm very cross with her it's also quite amusing to see her helping herself to stuff she likes. She didn't lift the purple-sprouting broccoli and I figure my carrot will get a break.

[Ricard with an H]

My dog continues to rape my carrot-beds and the carrot-crop continue to cause amusement to the extent we're thinking we should kept a record of all the shapes.

Look at this one.

[vegpatchmum]

Oh wow! That is pretty impressive

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