Someone sent me this article: Rescue Cat Refuses to Eat Food Unless It Comes With Side Salad. At least this guy is eating healthy! My own cats don’t have the healthiest eating habits. We have to hide plastic bags, and one guy is a big fan of the glue from tape on packages. Know any weird eaters?
I recently looked after a cat that apparently liked eating anything small and rubbery so small hair bands, rubber bands, those tiny rubber animal figurines so all those kinds of things had to kept far away from her. Not much of a challenge in my opinion but the owners had a child so I’m assuming there were a few decapitated rubber animals before they figured out what the cat was getting up to.
My cat ate the string to my yo-yo, from the end to the toy. I had to reconstruct the string to determine whether there was any string left inside her. ‘Nuff said, maybe too much.
Got ya! I know the feeling. Soon after we brought in “the feral” (still one of his nicknames after almost 10 years) he ate a foam ear plug. Vet said it would probably come out. A day later it did. There it was!
On my most recent sit, in Seattle, we had freezing, icy weather for a few days. I took my sit pup to Gasworks Park on Lake Union. The edge of the lake turned out to still be frozen during our visit, as were various icy patches. She loved that, like they were icy treats made especially for her to lick.
There also were many, many goose turds strewn about, all frozen. My sit dog excitedly hopped about, trying to snack on them, ick. I tried to maneuver her around them, but they were so plentiful that we ended up leaving sooner than later.
On various other walks, we’d come across folks’ dropped gloves and mittens. They’d ended up frozen to the sidewalks. She loved chewing them free and couldn’t bear to part with them, so she’d end up carrying them into my rental car. I thought it funny when I turned it back in at the airport. I imagined the rental car people wondering why I had so many such trophies, like a serial killer, LOL.
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My own dog loves bits of human food. He knows to not beg — he just sits by the dining table with his irresistible little face, looking hopeful. My husband and I give him little morsels and then cut him off with a “no more,” which he understands.
He’s tried everything from Peking duck to salmon. Once, he tried several kinds of caviar, because my employer at the time would send gift packs for team-building activities every week or two, like caviar tasting, because we worked remotely. I think it’s hilarious that our rescue pooch has tried so many foods.
A good friend of mine has a 13 year old border terrier who hasn’t chewed stuff since he was a pup.
Recently they found some shreds of webbing/binding from a toy and suspected he had eaten the rest! It resulted in
Several visits to the vet
Ultrasounds
Medication
Operation
Overnight stay
An extortionate bill
(they recovered quite a bit of material from his insides)
He is making good progress but it was touch and go as it was a major operation at his age.
I also sat for a dog who had an operation to remove stones and gravel from his stomach.
Recently there was a vet programme featuring a dog that had eaten half a tea towel!
So yes pets do eat weird stuff and it can have serious consequences.
On a recent house sit - baubles from the tree 
@Silversitters - Yikes! Hope it all came out well in the end 
A timely reminder for all sitters to check the arrangements in place for veterinary treatment/emergencies whilst they are on a sit.
@Twitcher fortunately no harm caused to the pup (other than to the bauble) 
but we were worried for a day and monitored carefully for any signs of obstruction.
Everytime a bell rings an angel gets his wings
(It’s A Wonderful Life quote. Sorry, couldn’t resist)
Due to targetted ads, I’m always seeing ads for pet insurance reminding me that every 6 seconds someone is getting a vet bill of more than $1000!
Here’s a really weird one…
My dog will eat his own poop if you ignore his potty time call. He will go in his pee pad and then clean up after himself by eating it. 
According to articles I’ve read and trainers that I’ve spoken to, he is following his wolf instinct of keeping the place he resides in clean. Wolves do this when someone in their pack is sick and goes inside their caves. Another reason is that he’s embarrassed and cleaning up to hide evidence.
He doesn’t do this very often though, the most recent was because it was below zero for almost an entire week here, and wasn’t safe for him to go outside and we didn’t catch him on time. We normally pick it up and flush it when the weather is not permissible.
Another thing he does that it’s weird is that he seems to also like to eat wild rabbit poop! I’ve heard of other dogs liking this too, maybe because the little rabbit turds look like kibbles?
Yuk! My mum’s Westie thought horse poo was a delicacy.
Our dog (may she rest in peace) used to eat cat poop from the litter box. We had to keep the litter box where she couldn’t get to it. Her last couple of years, she used pee pads due to cushing’s disease. She’d only poop on the pad if we weren’t home. When she pooped on the pads, she’d leave it, but one of the cats would turn up the pad from the corner to bury it.
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sorry for your loss but what a kind cat to come to the rescue and clean up after your dog!
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Thanks. The loss was 10 years ago. The cat is still kind.
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@Twitcher we did a sit where we were the first house on a farm track full of pot holes. One day 3 huge lorry loads of manure were delivered to the farm further down the track. Manure had dropped off the lorries as they bounced over the potholes, and then spread all across the track as the residents and farm workers zig zagged along the track to avoid the holes. There was no way of avoiding it when walking the dogs. They loved eating manure so much, they were even stealing the bits hanging out of each others mouths!
That’s interesting context.
I’ve seen or heard about animals eating turd sometimes, but it’s always seemed odd to me that they aren’t put off by the smell, since various ones have such a keen sense of that vs. humans. But of course, they sniff each others’ butts all the time, so maybe it smells great to them, LOL.
Unrelatedly, I remember a friend telling me she sat a friend’s dog once and he barfed up all the pieces of an entire Kong toy that he’d chewed up.
And I once watched a video about veterinarians taking care of pet emergencies and there was a dog who ate a crapload of sand, because apparently some human had dropped ice cream into it and it had melted. The dog ate so much that it was blocking his innards and they had to monitor to see whether the sand would pass. If it didn’t and instead solidified enough, they would have to perform surgery on him. Luckily, it ended up passing, but who would’ve thought a dog would eat a ton of sand and endanger himself.
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