Both our permanent dog and temporary dog eat grass. They devour feather reed and hakone grass like they were covered in gravy. They aren’t fooled by foliage that looks like grass but isn’t – they don’t eat grass-imposters like lily turf and blue-eyed grass . Feather reed grass foliage seems like it would be rough and lacking in proper “mouth-feel”. Although, to me, goose poop is unappetizing.
This spring I picked up a pot of “cat grass” at the garden center, thinking I could save some wear and tear on my landscape grasses. “Cats love it!” said the label. Dogs don’t, as it turns out.
The dogs also eat lawn grass when it gets nice and long from lack of mowing, which is often.
I wonder if they both crave something in the grass that’s missing from their diet, or if they just enjoy the taste. The leaves seem to come out in pretty much the same condition that they go in. Do the dogs instinctively know that they need more fiber?
Maybe they are just hungry for something – anything – and don’t have the opposable thumbs to open the cabinet door and the dog food receptacle.
Is there some narcotic effect? Maybe I should try it.
Maybe it’s their way of getting a little dig at me for making them show off their obedience skills to visitors. “Yeah, I’ll let him make me sit, but just wait until I get at the prized hakone grass.”
It’s not news that a certain large hopping herbivore has become a nuisance in some suburbs, limiting our palette of landscape plants. As if the small hopping herbivore weren’t torment enough.
But dogs? Should we be avoiding certain plants that are eaten by dogs? Should we be planting certain plants so that dogs can enjoy them? If the dogs could talk they would badger me for a yard full of tomato plants. Mmmm … partially ripe tomatoes.