Eating strange things

[Dawnnziggy]

Myrtle has been the only dog for over a year.  She tries to make friends with out neighbor's rat terrier who  is very annoying.  She has also tried to make friends with their cat as well.  We have considered adopting another grey but our adoption group no longer.  

This is the weird thing she is doing.  She eats my dirty socks and sometimes clean ones!  The little ones you wear with Bobs or Toms.  She doesn'tusually eat them unless they are dirty.  She goes in my son's room and gets his dirty socks and licks them until they are soaked!  She leaves my DH's socks alone.  I am going to buy a hamper for my bedroom.  Right now I keep my dirty socks on top of my dresser until I wash them.  Sometimes she throws them up and other times she poops them out.  I can't figure out why!

Any ideas?  We have had her for 7 years and she has never done this before.  No one wants to adopt to us because they are all too far away.  The closest one is an hour and a half away.

[BatterseaBrindl]

I have no ideas as to why she is chewing socks, but please put them somewhere she can't get them.

They can cause a serious impaction.

[smt]

Maybe it is her new way of telling you she loves you . . . so much that she literally cannot get enough of you so that she has to eat your clothing to carry around a piece of you inside of her:)

In all seriousness, our new girl, who is not at all interested in toys, LOVES to go after our socks.  So far, she has not swallowed one bc we generally keep them picked up, but if we did not, I fear she would ingest them.

It might be a good time to start researching other breeds.  As the number of dogs dwindles overall due to bans and track closures, spending some time figuring out the next best thing to having a greyhound might be wise.  We just adopted a two year old, and may end up adding another to our pack in the next couple of years (we have very active adoption program in our city), but this is likely our last hoorah with greyhounds.  We always thought we would only have them as pets, but with the changing times, we realize that our next go around, which will hopefully be many years in the future, we will likely be forced to choose a different breed . . . 

[Dawnnziggy]

Believe me, I thought they were up.  I'm not sure where she has found them.  I do not even put my socks in the laundry basket any more.  I do not want to think about not having a greyhound in the house.  We've had a hound since 2004!  Their personalities are amazing!  I would not put her health at risk.  She sleeps with me every night and is very much my dog.  I love her very much. I just wondered if anyone had ever heard of this!  

[palmettobug]

My girl Fuzzy is a plastics chewer, even though she has lots of stuffies. She's picked up a few clothing items and taken them to her "nest". Having had a cat with pica, I know the only solution is to keep things out of reach.

Also--look into galgo adoption. Multiple people here have both, from what I can tell, they are awesome, too.

[smt]

 . . . and also look at Lurchers.

[cleptogrey]

One of the recent fosters at a sock, a $6k sock! 

My friend's new boy ate 2 of her year old daughter's socks! She fed them to him. Fortunately  he vomited both of them up(lots of oil/water/bread for lubrication) and the toddler now has a special container of Cheerios to feed him!