Some dogs like wild edibles..Chickweed

Our funny dog will eat anything thats in my hand. A while back she ate all the okera in the garden after I fed her one.

Cute.  My labs will eat almost anything I give them as well.  They love veggies and I have to keep a close eye on them in the garden.  Last spring one of mine had a great time digging up and eating radishes and they will strip peas off the vine.  And berries they love berries.  I always take them with me berry picking (since I don't want to surprise a bear) and I think Loki often gets more berries than I do.  He's like a little bear in the berry patch.  

While dogs were domesticated from wolves who eat about 80% meat, we have changed them into omnivores just like us. Thousands of years of feeding them from what we cooked that day will do that. One study I read recently said that dogs digestive systems had shrunk because humans have been feeding them cooked food for so long that they didn't need the longer tract anymore. Our digestive tract did the same thing around 1.8 million years ago when Homo Erectus started cooking meat.

I had a boxer who went nuts for oranges and bananas.  He would smell them from anywhere in the house and be all over me for his share.

My doggie Toetie (Tutti) eats everything I eat. Only thing she does not like is coffee. She likes all fruits and veggies, cooked or raw. I do not allow her to dig in the garden, or take plants/fruits from it, but I do give her leaves or berries.

I've known individuals of more "primitive" breeds like malamutes and eskies to seek out wild saskatoons and rosehips, with no human encouragement, and eat them.  Wolves and kin may eat 80% meat, but what about the other 20% of their diet?  Probably the berries give nutrition and fiber, and taste good to them, just the same as with us.  Then there was my husky, who was a menace in my garden...stripping the peas off the vines at the peak of perfection, nipping off the tender little broccoli heads just forming, denuding the raspberry bushes...she had a taste for food at its peak of tender perfection.  Oh, and wild strawberries.  She would make a point of stopping to browse.

We had a sled dog in my family who liked to pick blueberries, preferably off the same bush we were picking.  (That was a pain.)  And I have one dog currently who brings fallen pears into the yard and chews on them (and guards them!) like they were choice bones.  

I also have a dog who eats wild persimmons, which is standard behavior also for the local coyotes.

Regan Dixon wrote:I've known individuals of more "primitive" breeds like malamutes and eskies to seek out wild saskatoons and rosehips, with no human encouragement, and eat them.  Wolves and kin may eat 80% meat, but what about the other 20% of their diet?  Probably the berries give nutrition and fiber, and taste good to them, just the same as with us.  Then there was my husky, who was a menace in my garden...stripping the peas off the vines at the peak of perfection, nipping off the tender little broccoli heads just forming, denuding the raspberry bushes...she had a taste for food at its peak of tender perfection.  Oh, and wild strawberries.  She would make a point of stopping to browse.

From what I have read some of that 20% is from the stomach contents of their prey. Fruits and nuts make up a smaller portion, along with some grasses.

My Saint Bernard loved black cherry tomatoes.  Not any other tomatoes, but he would strip the black cherry tomatoes off any plants within his reach (ie growing out of the compost) before I could get to them.  He only took the ripe ones.   He also liked apples, pears, bananas (he stole 1 from a bunch of the counter, pealed and ate it, wish I had a pic), pasta, bread, granola, beer and wine (not allowed, but he would lick out a glass if you left it in his reach).  He actually closed his eyes and savored the sweet things or alcoholic things as he ate or drank them...   my Dane, on the other hand, only likes meat/eggs or things soaked in meat juices (will taste, but spit anything else out). And, yes, we love our giants.

My dog ate many things from the yard and nature. Violet leaves, chickweed, dandelion, hawthorn berries, rose hips, when she was a puppy she had a hankerin for pinecones.  I'm sure she ate other things i did not see.
I read an article some years back about a dog that a woman claimed healed itself of a heart problem with hawthorn berries it sought out at her local dog park.  She got worried when she saw the dog kept eating them so she looked it up to see what they were.  She ended up finding out they are not poisonous & the properties and how it is used in herbal medicine and decided it was okay for the dog to eat them. As the story went on she said she went back to the vet sometime later to see how the dog was doing and the vet said the dogs condition had improved.  

Roxanne Sterling-Falkenstein wrote:My dog ate many things from the yard and nature. Violet leaves, chickweed, dandelion, hawthorn berries, rose hips, when she was a puppy she had a hankerin for pinecones.  I'm sure she ate other things i did not see.
I read an article some years back about a dog that a woman claimed healed itself of a heart problem with hawthorn berries it sought out at her local dog park.  She got worried when she saw the dog kept eating them so she looked it up to see what they were.  She ended up finding out they are not poisonous & the properties and how it is used in herbal medicine and decided it was okay for the dog to eat them. As the story went on she said she went back to the vet sometime later to see how the dog was doing and the vet said the dogs condition had improved.  

That is an amazing story. smart dog

I've been out in my yard (the unkempt areas away from the garden) quite often in the past year, and I've noticed my dog loves moving around and consuming plenty of things I would never expect: dandelions, lamb's quarters, mustards... I was tempted to stop him as I enjoy them myself but I figure more power to him, getting his greens!