Why Do Dogs Eat Mud

You know that your pet dog would eat just about anything because they have such great appetites but you would still ensure that the beloved pet is given nutritious foods. Dogs are well loved pets and some owners would even go to the extent of providing the pet with home cooked meals. An owner though would get exasperated with the pet’s bizarre habits. Even well fed ones would still eat non-edible things. As if it is not enough for dogs to eat spoiled food human’s best friends would eat grasses and leaves, their own and other dog’s feces Do you know that dogs have an unexplainable fondness for mud too?

Digging is one of the natural behaviors of dogs. We know that dogs have very sensitive sense of smell. Dog owners would know that their pets are intelligent and have very retentive memories. Even after a while, a dog can unerringly find the place where it has buried a bone. Pet dogs don’t go hungry but once they have dug a bone, the dirt and the mud will be ingested as well. Puppies are curious of their environment and in the process of investigating their world, puppies would use their mouth. These digging habit is believed to be the reason why dogs have developed a fondness for mud. A dog may have other reasons for eating mud.

Dogs have the ability to self medicate and mud can be the dog’s cure for parasite infestation and upset stomach. Dogs are voracious and indiscriminate eaters thus it would not be surprising if these animals would suffer from stomach upsets. Considering the dog’s propensity to eat feces, worm infestation is a common concern of dogs. Eating mud is as well attributed to the dog’s effort to fill up a nutritional deficiency that is caused when dog owners feed the pet with low quality commercial food that contains more cereal fillers.

A health concern can be the reason why the dog eats mud. Your efforts to give the dog nutritious food may not benefit the pet because of a maldigestion and malabsorption syndrome. This means that the body will still be nutrient deficient in spite of the nutritious foods provided by the owner. Dogs eat mud to correct the nutrient deficiency in the diet.

Dogs would always want to have the attention of the family because these are social animals. This is the reason why if the dog is neglected, it would do something to gain your attention. The bored dog can be destructive or it can also eat feces, grass and mud to gain the attention of the human friends.

Why do dogs eat mud? Sarah’s Dogs has more answers to this question as well as first aid for dogs.