Too much of a good thing

My sister has a plum tree in her yard. Her husband never got around to trimming it last year and it's larger than it should be. Because of all the rain we got last year, the tree is producing a ton of plums. They are all ending up on the ground because they can't pick them fast enough.

Their dog has never been interested in the plums on the ground. Wednesday the dog had an upset stomach but they didn't know why. Then, Thursday she began throwing up.

As they were watching her in the yard, they saw her picking up plums. They noticed in one area there were a lot less plums on the ground than two days earlier. It appears that she has been gorging on the plums and now she is sick.

She is doing better today, though a little wobbly. Now they have to figure out how to keep her away from that side of the yard. They have a sizeable yard as they are the middle house in a court, so it won't be easy. Sigh...who knows why she has picked this year to eat all the plums.

 

Maybe the plums were so sweet. Who or what could resist.
If the plums can't be used for anything or by anyone, I thought perhaps a lawnmower could be used to pulverize the plums but I guess it may have to be done everyday.

 

Maybe they could find some people who are interested on their plums too and will willingly pick those for them.
Hope their dog will feel totally good already and will not eat any of those plums on the ground.

 

Depending on how big their yard is perhaps they could put a little decorative fence around it with a gate to stop their dog getting too close and eating the plums. I wonder why their dog ate the plums this year as he/she didn't in previous years. Anyhow they shouldn't leave their dog unsupervised in the yard until the area is safe.

 

Zararina, I thought of the same thing. There must be someone who really loves plums and would be willing to pick them for the opportunity to take a ton home for free.

I agree about not leaving the dog alone in the yard. Clearly, the plums are making her sick. It could turn into something serious if she continues to eat them. It's easy for a dog to get dehydrated.

The fence isn't feasible. But, mowing over them might work.

The crazy things you must worry about when you have a dog. It's like having a toddler around.

 

I hope their doggie gets better. She probably ate wayyyyyy too many plums. You know how dogs are when they find edible stuff: they never want to stop. Kind of like Pringles.

 

Maybe it was a particularly good plum season this year! Or maybe she hasn't tried them in a few years and this year, got too curious. Regardless, hopefully they can find somebody who is willing to pick some of them and maybe just keep the dog on a leash for outings for a while.

 

My sister's dog is doing much better, thanks. After a few days off plums, her digestion is back to normal. Luckily, she didn't develop any other problems like dehydration while she was sick. She is staying with me this weekend and she seems to be doing well. She gets plain unsweetened yogurt with her meals which seems to be helping. An added benefit is this picky eater devours her meals. She loves the yogurt! She will even lick the bowl clean.

Jessi, last year we had rain from February to August. While the rest of the country was trapped under the heat dome, our jet stream wouldn't move. We were stuck in rainy, foggy weather many weeks into Summer. It was great for all the fruit bearing trees. My brother has a peach tree that is exploding with fruit, too. My sister said they went out yesterday to pick a couple plums and there must have been another thousand on the tree.

This year was dry. We had rain only for 3 months. They probably won't have any plums at all.

 

I have an apple tree in my garden. Homer always picks up apples from the ground, it's one of his favorite activities during summer. But instead of eating them, he brings them home I saw him eating them only once or twice, when we were playing fetch with them.

 

Claudine, that is funny that he only likes to retrieve them. Maybe Homer thinks that you are the one who likes the apples.

We don't have any fruit bearing trees in our yard. Our neighbor has a Juniper tree that has berries in the Spring. I have to be careful because my little goat dog who will eat anything will pick them up. I don't think one would hurt her, but I'm sure if she ate a few she'd get sick. She is so small.

 

Lol, he doesn't bring them for me because he always bites me when I try to touch them or to throw them away. I know that he wants to have them, but it's not very nice to have rotten apples in our house
As for Juniper, be careful, some varieties produce poisonous berries

 

Claudine, I don't think I'd like getting rotten apples either. LOL Speaking of crazy things a pet has brought you, my Lab once brought me a snail and dropped at my feet in the hallway. Yuck!

I have heard that about Juniper berries. It's one of the reasons I am cautious. I've noticed that most of the time Misha spits them out, so hopefully, she knows better. She does seem to learn from eating bad things. I use capsaicin (hot pepper) lotion on my feet for arthritis. I apply it with a Q-tip. I am usually very careful. I wrap it in a piece of toilet paper so no one can touch the lotion and I toss it right away. But, one morning I left it on the bed when I was done. When I came back in there was a partially eaten, soggy Q-tip on the quilt. Misha had licked and chewed at it.

I contacted the Vet because I didn't know if anything in the tube was dangerous. She said to just watch her.

Misha was subdued that day and barely wanted to play. She didn't have an upset stomach but I have a feeling that the capsaicin burned her mouth and maybe her throat. It leaves a slight burning sensation on your skin and I've gotten it in my eye before. I thought my eye would never stop burning.

Anyway, after that I forgot several times in a couple of weeks. Not once did Misha pick up the Q-tips that I forgot to throw away. I can only assume she remembered the first experience.

 

Poor Misha I'm glad that it didn't poison her! I can imagine how scared you were when you noticed that she chewed the Q-tip.
Dogs have quite good memory, don't they? Homer sometimes learns from his mistakes too. For example, he avoids our basement, because he ran there once when he was a puppy, and he fell in a hole in the floor. It wasn't a big hole, so nothing happened to him, but he got scared.

 

Claudine, they have incredible memories. When I left those Qtips on the bed afterward, Misha never touched one. She seemed to remember that it wasn't a pleasant experience the first time. I am not sure if this is a quality of terriers (she is a Jack Russell), but she seems to have a good memory of what happened to her in previous situations.

Now if I can only get her to stop picking up stuff she shouldn't! I swear she finds things on the floor that no one else can see. The other day, she was chewing something. Only later, did my Mom realize it was a small ball of masking tape. It was on the counter and must have gotten knocked on the ground. Why that chewy globe would appeal to her is beyond me.

Getting back to the main theme, a friend of my sister had to take her dog into the vet. He was in pain after eating paper towels. It was a larger dog (60-70 lbs). You wouldn't think paper towels would do much harm, but because he ate two at the same time, they blocked his intestines. They had to do surgery to remove them.

 

A surgery? This is awful! I hope that he is okay now!
Whenever my Homer manages to find a paper towel or a tissue, he always tears it up into pieces, I really worry that he may swallow some of them

 

I know its high maintenance but before we let chacha have free reign of the garden my hubby rakes the grass a bit first to make sure no objects are there that she might end up eating. I'm sure an ocular inspection of the area would be good enough. You can also just make your dog's play time in the garden supervised so you can stop her from eating the plums when she begins chomping on them. It really is for me like bringing your kid to the park. You have to watch them closely so they don't get into mischief.

 

I'm so glad that I don't have this problem with Homer. I couldn't make his play time supervided, because he likes to spend many hours in our garden. Watching him would be time-consuming.
I think that surrounding the tree with a fence might be a good idea.