Any ideas?? We are all stumped now.

[MandaS]

Hi,

I wondered if anyone had come across this before or had any ideas. One of my spaniels (age 9) is obsessed with eating mud and after her meals she seems obsessed with picking up any bit of dirt, bit of leaf or twig etc off the floor. She has had all her front teeth removed on the top because they all became loose and infected through we think grabbing mouthfuls of mud.

She has been seen by our vet on numerous occasions and had a huge amount of tests, but nothing shows up as an issue and our vet has said she cannot find any medical reason for it. We have tried removing wheat, red meat and then white meat from her diet (obviously not at the same time), and each works for a short while, but then she starts it again. All our dogs are raw fed and she has been spayed. She also keeps getting what appears to be some kind of urine infection but without any normal signs and very little raised white blood cells which would indicate a true infection, but she cannot hold on at times and anti biotics seems to work for a while then it's back. I wonder if this is connected to the obsessive mud and rubbish eating?

We are all out of ideas now, so any help or info would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone

Manda

[Nettle]

I consulted my vet a few years ago with a similar problem, and he said it was a hindgut issue, and that conventional medication was a bit hit and miss because drugs were pretty much all absorbed by the time they got to the hindgut. We used homeopathy which as you know has to be tailored to the individual dog BUT one course (2 weeks) of Proteus cured mine, and the issue never recurred. Before going that route you might like to try charcoal biscuits, or any clay-based or slippery elm based treatment. Please note I am NOT a vet, so these are just suggestions from personal experience of different avenues that are harmless if they don't work.

[MandaS]

Thanks Nettle, that's great. I thought about trying the granulated charcoal so may try that first and possibly the tree bark powder that we have used in the past for others.

Thanks again, will let you know how we get on.

Manda