north carolina

Do you let your dog eat sticks? Many breeds like to chew things and what is better than a stick found out in the yard. Typical to Golden Retrievers Oshie loves to chew sticks (he also eats grass and dirt and socks and underwear but that is a whole different story).

Generally I do my best to prevent him from eating the sticks that he finds. Luckily we don’t have any trees directly in our yard so in order for him to even get branches we have to be walking near the woods. More often than not he just chews it up and maybe eats a small portion of it which normally passes in the form of a wood chip filled poop. The reason I normally prevent him from chewing and eating branches is because I worry he is going to cause damage to his stomach or intestines if he swallows a big enough piece or possibly get something stuck in his throat. Like any pet parent this is simply a situation I do not want to happen.

20160217-_MG_6546 — Mmmm you taste good!

We have had some pretty close calls when he was a puppy that should have ended up with a visit to the vet but thankfully did not. This was during his sock and underwear phase. He has literally eaten entire socks whole (not chewed just swallowed in one piece) and passed them out the other side. The same has happened with panties. Strange dog we have ha-ha. It got to the point that we have to hide laundry and keep every piece out of his reach and we still do. We have dodged the bullet several times and had more than our fair share of luck as far as Oshie eating things he shouldn’t. I don’t want to break that streak so when it comes to sticks I usually say no.

20160217-_MG_6548 — I’m gonna eat you all up!

The other day I gave in and let him enjoy the sticks he found as we were playing in the yard. I think my attitude change is a combination of the weather finally being nice, (yard has been a mess so he has been cooped up inside) Oshie being depressed that mom is in Norway and the fact that it just brings a smile to my face seeing him run around with a stick in his mouth. He prances around and throws it with his mouth and generally just acts like a fool. So I let him chew a few sticks under close supervision and was able to snap a few cool photos and enjoy the nice weather.

In the grand scheme of things I don’t think it is too terrible to let our pups chew a stick every once in a while. They seem to enjoy it and I think just like any chew toy, if supervised properly it is relatively safe.

If you own a dog share please share your thoughts in the comments and any strange habits your pet has. As always thanks for stopping by.

Oshie makes me laugh! Here is a quick little story that happened over the weekend.

Oshie and I were outside enjoying some decent weather (lately it has been awful). He was running around sniffing and peeing on all of his claimed spots and generally happy not to be cooped up inside. We spent a good hour or so outside just being active. I was looking for birds and he was eating sticks and continuing to pee on things.

Finally the sun was starting to set and it was getting a bit cold so I decided it was time to go inside. Once inside I went to put my coat away and give Oshie a treat. He quickly scarfed it down and then began trying to lead me upstairs. I was curious as to what he wanted so I decided to follow. He sauntered right into our bedroom and then continued on to the master bath. Once in the bathroom he stopped, sat down in front of the bath tub and looked at me with the sad eyed please look he does when he wants something.

Not sure exactly what he wanted I asked him “what do you want” followed with “show me“. Well he puts his paw up on the tub and lets out a little whimper. At this point I am thinking he wants a bath but he had just gone to the groomer the week before so that wasn’t happening. Then I noticed he was looking at the faucet and it dawned on me, he wanted me to hand feed him water out of the faucet. I began to laugh out loud as I turned on the faucet. He had water in his bowl down stairs but noooo he wanted to beg for faucet water. This is a terrible but comical habit he picked up waiting around for us to get in and out of the shower.

I gave him a few handfuls of water and turned the faucet off laughing the whole time. All I could think about is Oliver Twist ha-ha.

Oshie makes me laugh!