Dutch Shepherd Forum

What is your pup's favorite snack?
For Roo, it's my Keebler crackers.

Although, I think she has taken a liking to Deb's Cup O' Noodles......

APPLES! It's a ball you can eat. The new house has a large apple tree and they were ready to pick when we moved in. Odin loves to sit under it and eat them. He'll even dig in the snow for frozen ones now. Elli likes to bring them to us for fetch and then eat it on her way in when we're all done.

Stephanie, the answer to this is probably self-evident in your post, but my crew also loves apples, but i have always felt compelled to ''serve'' them cut up. are there any potential problems in giving whole with the core like that?
if not, it really would be so much more fun to have a really edible ball!

Kevin, have you seen my post under ''is mine a DS'' concerning Molly? if not, take a look. i have always thought that D-Roo may be a lurcher, which would explain her extraordinary charms.

Peanut butter for sure.

johninny wrote:Stephanie, the answer to this is probably self-evident in your post, but my crew also loves apples, but i have always felt compelled to ''serve'' them cut up. are there any potential problems in giving whole with the core like that?
if not, it really would be so much more fun to have a really edible ball!

Other than a choking hazard which really can happen with anything, even if you cut if up, and the fact that there's a lot of sugar and water in apples than can cause diarrhea if eaten in excess, the main concern is cyanide in the seeds.

The lethal dose for HCN is between 1.1-1.5mg/kg of body weight (sources differ). Since most apple seeds only have .6mg of HCL, I'd need 100 or so seeds for it to be lethal for a dog like Odin. The average apple has 8-10 seeds. So right off the bat, he'd need seeds from 10 or 12 apples at the same time to poison him.

You also have to realize that the seeds have to be crushed out of their protective coating and eaten immediately in order to release the HCN and ingest it before it evaporates (HCN boils at 78 degrees F, it's usually warmed outside when apples are ripe). Apple seeds are designed to pass through animals intact so that the tree can reproduce in various places as droppings are left, and dogs don't chew their food, they mash it until it can fit down their throat. Without the side to side teeth grinding of a herbivore or humans flat teeth, it's hard to break open the seeds. Judging by the waste left in the yard and the amounts of apple chunks and intact seeds I see, very few, if any at all, are broken open by the dog and ingested anyway. I haven't sat there and counted the seeds in the apple and compared it to what was in the waste, but i'd say maybe a seed or two a week could've been ingested. I don't see the harm in a few apples to play with personally.

If you're going out of the way to put it in the food where they'll probably lick the bowl clean, perhaps cutting them up would be a good precaution, but out in the yard they leave pieces everywhere anyway as they run and munch, so they're probably losing a lot of the tiny seeds in the grass to begin with.

wow! - thanks, Stephanie. and the dogs thank you. great news for them.
what a complete, detailed [ and, sometimes, hysterically funny ] response. much appreciate.

Many years ago I read that a human would have to eat a cup of apple seeds to prove fatal. I always just give a slice, anyway, because of the sugar.

Thor beholds all food exciting and worth any amount of work to get it. My neighbor used to "complain" how much work my dogs have to do to get a morsel. That said, if he knows he's getting a particularly savory treat, he usually has very quick, sharp, perfect form with commands...but on occasion, the two hemispheres of his brain will split in two and he suddenly becomes very, um, well, BLONDE.

Wow, favorite snack huh? For Sadie, that is anything and everything.. From Mice she finds in the yard to what is in the kids back pack.

Thalies all time favorite snack is deer poop

johninny wrote:Stephanie, the answer to this is probably self-evident in your post, but my crew also loves apples, but i have always felt compelled to ''serve'' them cut up. are there any potential problems in giving whole with the core like that?
if not, it really would be so much more fun to have a really edible ball!

Kevin, have you seen my post under ''is mine a DS'' concerning Molly? if not, take a look. i have always thought that D-Roo may be a lurcher, which would explain her extraordinary charms.

Dear God John, that is hilarious! Yes, I believe lurcher may apply here. I can't say for sure, because I haven't seen it in person, but I think Roo has actually learned how to close the pantry after raiding it.

As for the apple seeds, I don't think there is a problem unless they somehow manage to get hung up inside. Heck, little Miss Dinga Roo passed a couple of double A batteries when she was a pup. She ate a TV remote and I was in a panic checking her "leavings" until I had a proper Duracell count. If your interested, I think it took about 16 hours for the entire trip. (It's just an estimate, I had to go to work).
A seed shouldn't be a problem at all.....

Now if I can just get the image of Odin and Elli shooting seeds out of their.......
Nevermind.....

Tango has done some amazing tricks for the butter dish! I thought I had her thwarted and the next time I was in the kitchen, she was able to pull the flour canister to the end of the counter and remove the stick of butter from the dish without spilling the flour or dropping the dish.

Whatever is sitting on Greg's plate because he knows better to take it off mine?
I actually thought about making biscuits for him. I know you can't use wheat flour with dogs I think you have you use carrot flour. I just hope Greg know the difference
As for the apples yes I should put a picture of Dutch climbing our apple tree to get one when we're not around.

Wegas favorite Snack is a fresh oder dried chicken leg with claws

Peppers favorite snack would be my wife's shoes that or peanut butter.

OK, so Miss Dinga Roo has had enough of the crackers and upgraded.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlxXcDjnvEI

Sorry about the video quality. It's not like I keep a vid camera handy, but my cell phone is always somewhere around. Ever try to catch a dog on camera and turn the TV off at the same time? LOL.

Toooooo funny. It looked chocolate. I hope she didn't actually eat it. I have got to learn how to post videos. I have some that will make you pee your pants. Kinda like this one.

karenz wrote:Toooooo funny. It looked chocolate. I hope she didn't actually eat it. I have got to learn how to post videos. I have some that will make you pee your pants. Kinda like this one.

Oh, yeah, it's chocolate. She didn't eat it, though. I think she does it to mess with me.

To post videos, create a Youtube account. Download them there and then copy and paste the link here.

I think you can do it with Photobucket, too. I'm not sure if I have tried that yet, so your mileage may vary.

This may not be Xander's favorite snack but he stole my pickle earlier and greatly enjoyed it. I thought for sure my pickle would be safe on the counter.

I just discovered that Xander LOOOOVES coconut. I see that I will be cracking 2 at a time from now on so I don't have to share mine.

I haven't found anything he DOESN"T like, except mushrooms, he won't eat mushrooms. Obviously, I won't let him have raisins, chocolate, etc., a little bit of liver/peanut butter treat will have to do then.

Liza was my childhood GSD - a gentle giant that made me want to find a shepherd at the pound after the death of my two dogs within 3 months of each other. This is how I met Radar the polar opposite of Liza.

I used to spend quite few summers at my grandfathers place in Ocala, FL just outside the National Forest there. We did a lot of fishing. We caught our own shiners (bait fish) and kept the leftovers in a bait bin my grandfather built on his property.

One day, after pulling the leftover shiners out of the boat and putting them in a bucket to transport them to the bait bin, something made me put the bucket down and focus my attention elsewhere. When I turned back around, Liza had her face buried in the bucket and came out with a live shiner wriggling in her mouth. One quick gulp and the shiner was gone.

Liza never got excited over anything except our return from fishing trips. We would purposely save a few every time just for her.

So you might be wondering what that has to do with my DS's favorite snack...

I was at one time a fishing guide here in South Florida and needless to say we always have fresh fish around my house. Ever since Liza, I have fed raw fish scraps to my dogs, and they ALL loved it.

EXCEPT Radar!

Radar will pretty much eat anything but fish. He'll eat the Blue Buffalo Salmon kibble, but put a chunk of raw salmon in his face and he'll turn away and leave it sitting on the floor.

Luckily, I have Leela to come by and gobble it up right away.