German shepherd eats vegetables

Many years ago I had a German Shepherd who loved sweet potatoes. It started around Thanksgiving, a friend gave my Dad a box of sweet potatoes. My German Shepherd would not leave the box alone. So my Dad gave him half a potato and my shepherd ate it up. From then on every shepherd we have had ate at least two or more different vegetables. Celery, carrots, sweet potatoes were their favorites. Spinach and mushrooms no they did not like them. I had one shepherd who could pretend to eat spinach but it would end up on the floor.

Have you had a dog or cat eat there vegetables? What were there favorites?

Absolutely! It's normal, and healthy. They are more omnivorous than you think. It helps to introduce them when they're young(er). Carrots, snap peas, raw potato. And of course they will nosh on fresh green grass shoots without prompting.

Also fruit: green apples on the tree, saskatoon berries, raspberries. Sometimes a piece of mandarin orange at Christmas.

Pro tip 1: Don't show Irish Wolfhounds that peas on the vine are good to eat. They pull up the entire plant.

Pro tip 2:  If you have inside dogs, limit quantities of raw veg (esp. potato) lest a noxious green fog fill your abode.

I feed my dog raw eggs, raw meats,  various fruits, and gently cooked veggies, daily. The only things off the table, are those that are toxic to them, like onions, grapes, raisins, chocolate, coffee, and chemically cured anything. Some things, like most fruits, are high in sugars, and she doesn't need that, but lower sugar/higher nutrient & antioxidant things, like strawberries, blueberries(a daily item), cranberries, raspberries, apples and bananas (high in sugar, so small bits, but a few times per week, for all their yummy Potassium) are all frequent treats, in our house. Blueberries help with minimizing that weird brown straining around the eyes, on lighter colored dogs, and are so high in antioxidants that she gets them with pretty much all her meals, along with the cranberries, that are so good for the urinary tract.

I do try to stay away from legumes, because they can be inflammatory, so as they get a bit older, legumes (peanuts, Peas, kidney beans, cashews,etc) can exacerbate joint issues, weight problems, and the like.

Both our dogs used to help me peel vegetables.  Carrots, turnip (rutabaga) and sprouts.  They'd sit next to me and take juicy bits from my hand. After our elder dog died I found that Dyson was only pretending to like them because Douglas did!  He will usually take what's offered (so as not to hurt my feelings?) and then spit it out under the table, so I don't bother any more.  I do however cook more root veg than we need so as to usually have some I can add to his food, and he'll eat it with his meat and biscuits.  I started doing this when Douglas was diagnosed with a cancer, and have carried on even after he died.  Dyson really likes to help me pick raspberries.  Luckily he hasn't worked out how to do this himself yet!

Our dog spots anyone eating an apple and sits staring at them until he gets the core.

My dogs love carrots and mangoes.

as offspring of wolves which are mainly prey on omnivores and if they caught one, they go always first for the intestines.
They must have in their instinct that a veggie wrap (stomach) has some benefits for the immune system of the dog.

I have posted here on permies several times about feeding vegetables to my dog.

This has been a daily routine for several years.  I give her 1/3 cup of Pro Plan dog food for breakfast.  Then for lunch and dinner, she gets about the same amount of green beans, carrots, and/or pumpkin.

Since covid, she gets whatever leftover that might go into the trash. A little dab of peas, beans, corn potatoes, etc.

This is fun.  

My dog goes one step further and harvests the vegetable himself.  We discovered a couple of years ago that he was taking the cherry tomatoes off the vines in the tunnel.  He can also harvest strawberries, raspberries and blackberries off the plants and he takes apples and plums off the ground if he can dodge the bees.  

He gets a lot of raw veg in his diet including carrots, green peppers, cabbage and celery. Basically I just grate them with the cheese grater and mix them with his other food (also raw).  He spends ages crunching everything up with a look of bliss on his face.  

My Great Pyr loves veggies and fruits.  I make her kibble out of organic grains milled to fine texture (3 cups), 2 - 4oz. packages of Plum Organics baby food (veggie or fruit), 1/4c almond butter, 1 TBS ground flax, 2 TBS sunflower oil and a duck egg. I cook it in the HERC candle oven until its hard.  She loves it and its the only kibble she will eat. I often add sweet potatoes, bananas or coconut flour.  She loves fresh melon.  She has a picky stomach and meat doesn't sit well with her so she gets more veggies/fruits/grains than she does meat.  Horribly allergic to chicken

I have had a number of pets harvest their own veggies.

Years ago I had a cat who would eat green beans off the plants while the dog ate the tomatoes.  Bad year for the humans.

About 15 years ago, my old rottie harvested the asparagus the first year I could have.  Now the garden is fenced, but that was because of the chickens.

My current rottie will strip the lower branches of blueberries and the German shepherd goes for the blackberries.  They both look depressed when I catch them and tell them to stop.  Their current kitten is pulling up pea plants as she still fits between the gate and fence.  

Every animal seems to have its own quirks if only so I have no idea what to prepare for!

Oh you bet. Carrots are my Airedale's favorite thing. And since she gets one, the Dutch Shepherd has to have one too. They also love bananas and apples. The Dale learned to pillage apples and pears off the trees and it made her very happy. The Dutchie digs strawberries, but the Dale doesn't care for them. Nobody's much into greens or celery...

My girl won't touch carrots never has done, they were recommended as a teething thing, she won't even chew them! However she has learnt to pick strawberries, she loves plums and hoovers up anything that falls on the ground, both dogs like them but at least the pug doesn't eat the stones... Both dogs love potatoes and will follow you around when you are digging them and grab any stragglers, windfall apples are also much appreciated by my dog, she will also sit and stare at anyone eating an apple so she can get the core. This year  a lot of our brassicas winter-killed and the pug decided the rotten stems were delicious, each to their own I guess.

We have two sister golden retrievers, Marzipan and Penguin who are around 9 years old. We'll often see both of them grazing around our gardens eating grass, dandelion buds (i pick the small tender ones deep in the leaves for them), dandelion flowers, wild strawberries and who knows what else.

As far as veggies and fruit, we do try to feed them veggies of some sort with their kibble, or add some whole foods such as baked potato or rice and give less kibble.  They would do anything for baked sweet potato.  They LOVE fresh veg and berries picked from the garden right in front of them.  They sure are hound dogs!  Favourites are asparagus and peas, strawberries, they will take a sour sorel leaf but politely spit it out haha, blueberries, raspberries, haskap, they probably eat better than us.  They get a daily chunk of apple, maybe some orange or melon.  In winter, i chop up carrots and other root veg, they love cabbage (stinky poot poots!), tomato, peppers.  I suppose I could have just said they love it all!

One thing i've started giving them is a piece of dried nori (toasted seaweed) every day and they absolutely love that gross fishy taste.

We have a 9 year old hovawart who has sensitive kidneys (the kidney values in blood always come out on the very top of the range) and it has been suggested to us to feed him brocoli. Now he has quite a sweet tooth for it and there are no green noxious cloud type of problems.

Carrots are also welcome but he has a special love for apples and berries of all kinds, especially raspberries on a self-service basis.

Now and then I sneak some dried nettle into the bowl since from what I've read nettle seems to be a good restorative plant for the kidneys (and general energy levels), especially the seed.

Not my dog ....just a neighbor who lived somewhere in the woods near us. He was a wolf/husky mix.  He was his own dog, but we were good friends.  He would raid our garden for melons.   It was a small payment for all the help he volunteered to us.  He assigned himself the job of protecting our property.  It was well protected.