Red Shed Racing

A little over a year ago when the snow was melting and the mud dried up I noticed something very peculiar.  ALL of my dogs were eating dirt!.   It seemed like they were doing it all day long.  They would scratch at the ground and uncover a little fresh dirt and just eat.  What struck me the most was that they were ALL doing it.

I had not ever noticed it before.  I had a few grass eaters but this dirt eating thing was new and a bit concerning.  WHY were the dogs eating dirt?  My mind went over the possibilities and I thought they were missing something in their diet.  Now even though they eat EVO and oat bran and raw fish and meat as a very healthy diet for sled dogs I still thought they were missing something.  My second thought was they were lacking the power to digest the raw diet easily.  Perhaps in addition to the oat bran they needed more fiber....

I posted on a sled dog forum and asked if this was occurring elsewhere and asked if anyone knew why.  I got many responses about frequent dirt eating yet not one person knew why.  So I went about researching this and found that dogs who eat dirt may be lacking Silicon in their diet.  This is a micro-nutrient that was recently (relatively speaking) discovered to be vital for canines too.

I did a lot of research on what food sources contain Silicon and also what would be the safest and easiest to give to the dogs.  I chose beetroot in a powder form.  I have been giving the dogs 1 teaspoon of the red powder three days per week for one year.  I found many many reasons to feed this other than just to curb the dirt  and grass eating (I will post another entry soon on just beetroot) so I fed it all winter too.  It wasn't until this spring that I could see if it had made any impact in the dirt eating.

Low and Behold!!!!!!!  NONE of my dogs are eating dirt!!!!!!!!!  Now they are digging for pleasure and I suspect the grass eaters will still eat grass for fun but will stop eating grass due to a silicon deficiency.  Only time will tell on the grass eating as it is just starting to green up now. 

If you want to learn more check out these websites!

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=dminerals

http://www.morethanalive.com/Beet-Root-Powder