Steve has been here close to a year now and he is still the sweet, gentle dog he presented to be when he came. I had a DNA test done on him and Shirley last spring and learned that he is 3/8 beagle which goes a long way to explaining his most dominant personality trait - he eats anything. I haven't yet found anything he won't eat if given the chance. Walks, for Steve, are a chance to find snacks. The day after Halloween was a bonanza of dropped candy and constructions sites are full of broken cookies and dropped nuts.
When the public vegetable gardens were cut down earlier in the fall, Steve sniffed out, dug out and ate, both live and dead mice. And he's an effective hunter of mice and voles that are living under the snow. Oh, and anything edible lying frozen under the snow too. He's got an iron stomach to go with it too, the only time I've known him to throw up was when he ate too many crickets in one day. The road ditch has been a buffet of pizza crusts, apple cores, half-eaten sandwiches, etc. which he's sniffs out and eats with gusto. I've generally treated such finds as the price one pays when walking with dogs but Steve's nose finds half a dozen such prizes every time we go out!
Walter ate his share of garbage too, I remember the rabbit head he scarfed down - but Steve is disgusting in his willingness to eat all sorts of shit . . . literally. If he's bored at the dog park he starts begging for treats or searching out dried or frozen poop to eat! I realize this is not an unusual behavior for dogs but I'm grossed out by his obvious delight in eating whatever he can get his jaws around.
I don't know what, if anything, I am willing or able, to do about it.
