This is my dog’s first winter with snow, where we lived before it really didn’t snow. Well now my dog who is 4 years old (collie and shepherd) has taken to eating snow.
He won’t drink water. He scratches I let him out and he eats the snow. I hate to baby him but I called my vet who said “Dogs like snow, it’s cold.” So I put some ice cubes in his water. He looked at me like I was retarded and scratched to go outside and ate some snow.
He is perfectly healthy otherwise and has no other behavior problems, he just seems to really like to eat snow. I don’t know if he eats a lot but I do know he isn’t drinking his water.
Like I said he eats his food normally and plays and runs around just the same. It’s just he like the snow over his water dish.
Has anyone else observed this? Could something be wrong with him?
Nah, it’s probably not a health issue. As long as he’s eating and shows no signs of dehydration*, he’s probably fine.
Dogs, just like people, have preferences. He probably enjoys the tactile sensation of the snow melting on his tongue. I have an ultra-picky dog myself who will actually refuse water if it’s in a bowl she doesn’t like.
Pick up the skin at the back of his neck. If it snaps back into place smoothly, he’s fine. If it sticks or is slow to resume its natural shape, he may be dehydrated.
I think snow is just more fun than drinking water. Like purple ketchup or dinosaur-shaped macaroni and cheese.
My dog has grown up in a snowy place and she drinks less out of her bowl in the winter. I know it’s because she’s eating snow.
If you can, try to keep the snow out of your pooch’s view, if he’s bothering you too much to go outside. Like close the blinds or put a curtain up or something. Try to make him forget it’s out there
If you don’t mind letting him out all that much, then there’s no harm in eating all that snow.
Exactly. I don’t think I’ve ever known a dog that didn’t love snow. My dog not only loves to eat snow, he loves to nuzzle down into it and toss it into the air.
There’s a good chance that if you don’t let him out when he wants a drink, he’d eventually cave in and just have some water instead. But if you don’t mind letting him out, I don’t see any harm in it. As long as he’s getting water in some form he’ll be fine. You tried putting ice in his water, but have you ever just given him an ice cube? Any ice cube dropped on our kitchen floor gets instantly snatched up by the dog. Or you could be really nice and scoop up a fresh bowl of snow in his dish.
If your pooch is just eating the fresh snow in your back yard, I’m sure you’re fine. If it’s in an area where other dogs do their stuff and has melted and refrozen, there’s a possibility of giardia.
As someone who’s going through this now with my 7 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback pup (we’re not really sure where she got it…), trust me - you do not want your dog to have giardia. Some dogs can be carrying it without showing symptoms. She’s only ever out on leash in my suburban neighborhood, but loves to eat snow and ice outside, and sometimes tries to drink standing water. I try to stop her, but don’t always succeed. We don’t go to dog parks or forest preserves where you might expect she could pick it up. She’s doing much better, but isn’t over it 100% yet.
Unfortunately I think he’s just retarded. I went out and got some bottled water and put it in his dish, thinking maybe it was a chlorine smell or something.
He looked at me like I was still an idiot and went out side and drank melted snow out of a puddle of muddy water with leaves in it.
I had a labrador retriever who was born and raised in Montana. She loved the snow. She played in it and ate it. Just loved it. We were visiting my mom in Alamogordo, New Mexico one summer and drove out to look at the White Sands (Nat’l Monument). It was a hot day, and we were all kinds of parched, and when we drove into the park, Darcy (the labrador) saw these enormous white hills around us and got real, real excited. Poor dog. We stopped to play in the sand, and she jumped out of the car and bounded into the [snow, or so she thought] pure white sand and took a great big bite of it. What a look on that dog’s face as she spit out the sand. She was soooo confused, and just started barking at it. It was very funny, but the dog was completely miserable at that point. We had to go find her some water at the visitors center as quickly as we could.
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One of the dogs I petsit for has a funny habit: when she goes out in the morning, she’ll run around licking the dew off the grass. And I mean she RUNS. It’s kinda like one of those forest firefighting planes that scoop up water out of a lake. Except, she’s a poodle, and the lake is dew on the grass.
That’s what she makes me think of anyway. It’s cute.
