Reader Michelle asks: “Why does my beagle eat socks?” Allow a digression. Remember Dune, Frank Herbert’s novel or the 1984 film adaptation? Remember “sandworms?” From Wikipedia: “cylindrical worm-like creatures with a fearsome array of crystalline teeth used primarily for rasping rocks and sand. Its mouth was some 80 meters in diameter … crystal teeth glinting around the rim … the bellows breath of cinnamon … acids.”
A full-grown and, fortunately, fictional sandworm is a mobile thousand-foot-long intestine with a gigantic mouth on the business end which eats, literally, everything. In other words, sandworms are most dogs’ concept of heaven: constantly moving, constantly consuming every lovely smelly thing it comes across. Socks, tennis balls, fresh litterbox “deposits,” rocks, half-decayed seagulls on the beach, you name it. The world is a refrigerator and Fido just grew a thumb to open its door.
Eating indigestible objects with no nutritional value is called “pica” and occurs in both people and dogs. No one knows if it’s the same phenomenon in both species and theories abound for why dogs eat things that would be rejected by most creatures (excluding sandworms). Honestly, nobody knows why dogs eat this stuff. Maybe the dog is bored and, heck, let’s see what that cellphone tastes like. Could be the dog is starved for attention and, heck, I sure get my person’s attention once I’ve got that cellphone in my mouth.
(There’s also an extreme, frankly bizarre form of pica sometimes seen in animals who are otherwise already seriously ill: for example, a severely anemic cat happily chowing down on her cat litter as if it was typical cat food. Fortunately, it’s quite rare).
Michelle, my gut feeling (forgive the pun) is that your beagle eats socks simply because you leave dirty socks lying around. What’s with that? Joking aside, socks and other indigestibles can cause all sorts of medical problems for the unlucky dog who swallows them. Clean up your act!
Ken White is the president of the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA.