Dog Community

Do dogs understand when they've eaten something they shouldn't have

Posted : 4/17/2006 9:15:20 AM

Over the weekend we gave Boomer a new toy. As per usual he destroyed it pretty quickly. There was some hard plastic on this toy and I guess he ate some of it. This morning when I woke up I found a peice of this plastic in his crate. He must have thrown it up during the night. Is it possible that dogs have the ability to understand that what they ate made them sick (even though he ate this over 24 hours ago) and that they won't do it again? Since I found the piece of plastic in his crate this morning, made me curious as to if he realized that was what made him throw up and didn't bother trying to eat it again.

griffinej5

Posted : 4/17/2006 9:17:48 AM

I'm highly doubtful, considering the things that Max has chewed up, and chewed up again. Since they get sick so far after the fact, I doubt they can really understand what caused it. Maybe he just didn't eat it again because he was feeling bad.

mudpuppy

Posted : 4/17/2006 11:21:26 AM

I don't think it really bothers dogs to vomit. Humans have to be quite ill before they vomit, but dogs, well, it's easy and practically voluntary. Most dogs have the philosophy that they might as well eat it; if it's edible, great, if not, they can just puke it back up again.

probe1957

Posted : 4/18/2006 8:38:03 AM

Odie would eat tennis balls, then puke them up, for as long as you keep letting him have them. Although the SD thought the lime green puke was pretty cool, we elected not to let him have tennis balls, unsupervised.

dasher

Posted : 4/18/2006 11:59:14 AM

Dasher will occasionally eat things that make him sick too. Our lab has a bumper that she plays with. Eventually she will destroy it and sometimes there will be pieces of bumper in the grass. Dasher has eaten these pieces on several occasions. While he will not eat something he has thrown up, if he finds more pieces in the yard he will eat new pieces of bumper. [8|] As soon as I see our lab's bumper start to die, I will check the yard for pieces to pick up. We usually get the neon bumpers so the pieces are easier to see. [

] It usually takes her a month or so to destroy them.

Jennie-Carra

Posted : 4/20/2006 12:08:33 PM

We have had a TON of dogs in the past. I grew up with animals all around me. From what I have observed, dogs don`t feel guilt like humans do. I think they are run purely on instinct and that`s it. Of course, this is only what I think. When I catch my dogs eating something that is "off limits" they look up at me, smile and continue to eat it! Then the next day we find a pile of plastic either thrown up in the dog crate or I will find a pile of dog poop with the stuff in it!

Amanda

Posted : 4/21/2006 12:54:31 PM

No, I don't believe dogs think that way! Why else would we have Labs coming in with foreign bodies all the time? [

]

Once and object eater, always an object eater! There have been quite a few dogs requiring emergency surgery for ingesting things (beanbags, socks, underwear, just to name a few)... and we have repeat customers as well, so obviously they don't mind being cut open as long as they get to eat that sock!

Christi

Posted : 4/21/2006 4:01:43 PM

In a psych lab during undergrad I remember learning that if a rat is fed something that makes it sick it will learn not to eat that food again. However, rats are different in that they can't vomit, so that makes it different I guess. Wrigley will re eat something that has made him sick, that's for sure!

[linkhttp://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm]http://www.ratbehavior.org/vomit.htm[/link]