My Dog Ate Enough Grass to Mow the Lawn and Then Threw Up on the Couch — Here's What I Learned the Expensive, Embarrassing Way
I spent years watching my dogs eat grass and throw up, then felt like a failure when the internet said it was a sign of a nutritional deficiency. Here's what four vets, three dogs, and dozens of puke puddles actually taught me.
Beau was seven months old, a gangly lab mix with paws he hadn't grown into yet and a stomach that seemed to reject everything except chaos. One Tuesday afternoon — I remember it was Tuesday because I had a Zoom call with a pet food brand in 20 minutes — I let him out into the backyard. He trotted over to the patch of crabgrass by the shed, the one I'd been meaning to pull for three summers, and started hoovering it down like it was a Michelin-starred salad course. I called his name. He ignored me. I walked toward him. He speed-walked to a new spot and kept eating. Ten minutes later, back inside, he hopped onto the couch, looked me dead in the eye, and vomited a bright green, grass-studded puddle directly onto the cushion I'd just steamed. I was late to the call. The brand rep heard me mutter, 'Oh for the love of—' before I muted. That was the day I started Googling 'why does my dog eat grass and vomit' and tumbled into a rabbit hole of bad internet advice, old wives' tales, and one very memorable $560 emergency vet visit that turned out to be a whole lot of nothing. And a little of something.
