Dog ate grass

Crisp_£_note

Hi
I know it's 'normal' behaviour for a dog to eat grass on occasion but yesterday our Collie x Lurcher (male, neutered approx 9-10 years old) had eaten his dinner (Tesco meaty chunks dry complete food) fine then tried to cough it back up to no success. He didn't bolt his dinner down and of course had fresh water beside him. He settled for 5 minutes whilst he had a pee but then was unsettled and dashing around in a frenzy grabbing mouthfulls of grass and eating them coughing as he swallowed, we assumed he might have something caught in his throat or mouth so offered him some water by hand (holding the bowl which he drank but this didn't help much. He seemed better though and recovered by himself after a short while and calmed down.

We've never seen this behaviour before (he reminded us more of a pony the clumps he was pulling up). I'm concerned though as we have lost several dogs to a tumour in the throat and suspect it was from them drinking dirty water they have found. We've never seen this behaviour from either of ours before, yes they eat grass, which we try to discourage, but only the odd bit on occasion which usually passes through without any issues.

Dog is fine since so we're not planning on a trip to vet but just thought would mention it here incase anyone maybe able to help suggest why this occurred generally?

Thanks In Advance!

harrys_nan

this explains a lot

http://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/why-do-dogs-eat-grass.html

elsien

Gitdog does this, mutt used to as well. Mutt was the worst, she'd go into a total frenzy and panicked me the first couple of times she did it.
It tends to be when they've got indigestion or are trying to make themselves sick for any other reason. I've found that once they've been sick they calm down, so now I let them get on with it - if they're going to chuck up everywhere, I'd rather it was in the great outdoors than on my carpet.
If there was no available grass, mutt used to go for the dead leaves instead. Never seemed to do her any harm as she lived to the ripe old age of 15 which is good going for a bull terrier.
If it happens more often you might want to have a think about triggers - certain foods, times of day, whatever. With Gitdog it seems to be if I've fed him a bit late and he's gobbled it, he always does the grass eating thing the following morning.
The worst bit is the long strands of grass that go through, leading to the pleasant job of removing them from the rear end at a later date!

If it gets worse/more frequent you might want to get it checked out just in case. Mutt ended up with indigestion tablets.