carrot stick questions

almost every day i give zack a carrot stick, cold from the fridge. i guess because he is not much of a chewer, he doesn't usually eat them but gnaws on them for short time, then leaves them around. at night i throw them away, unless they are somewhere out of sight/out of mind. then, the next day, he finds it and starts chewing on it.

one question is, is this unhealthy, to be eating the carrot after it's started going soggy? is it growing much bacteria, or bottom line, does anyone else's dog do this and does it not bother them? once it goes soggy, then he seems to like to eat it more, since it's softer, and he may actually consume it at that point, whereas he rarely does when it's crisp. I tried offering him a crisp one instead and he chose the soggy one.

the other question is, could a carrot every day be too much vitamin A? I don't think so, but have heard of human damaging their liver by going on a carrot diet (fatally). as long as zack doesn't usually even eat them, i don't think it's an issue but if he did eat one or more carrots a day, weighing less than 14 lbs, is that too much vitamin A? I realize it's beta carotene, but long ago I heard from a med student friend that she learned in her class that someone died from eating a pure carrot diet. so....just wondering cuz zack is just a little guy.

I put carrot slices (come packaged at the grocery) on Sophie's food every night. She loves them and occasionally I eat a few too (altho' I like mine with ranch dressing :roll:

Sheri

The carrot is more of a filler and roughage for him -- dogs can't digest cellulose so he won't be getting much, if any, nutrition (including the vitamin A) off a raw carrot. They are just healthy treats so it doesn't matetr of he eats it -- if he likes chewing a bit and playing around that's fine, and not much bacteria will grow on a carrot in a day or two. Anyway, dogs have a gut designed to eat bacteria, rotting food, things that have been dead for days... bried for weeks even and dug up again. They are basically opportunistic scavengers if left to their own devices. Mine have eaten incredibly disgusting things with no problem so a soggy carrot shouldn;t be problem for him.

karlin said:

Anyway, dogs have a gut designed to eat bacteria, rotting food, things that have been dead for days... bried for weeks even and dug up again. They are basically opportunistic scavengers if left to their own devices. Mine have eaten incredibly disgusting things with no problem so a soggy carrot shouldn;t be problem for him.

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Really, Karlin, you need to post warnings for those of us who eat and read at the same time. :yuk:

the only thing i find when King had a carrot a day was sometimes he ppo was a orange color...but other then that he likes them...plus i add peas/diced carrots to his dinner sometimes