Hi all
Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of dogs eating cold used Heat Beads?
Is it a common practice amongst our canine friends?

My 17 year old dog has suddenly started taking cold left over used heat beads from the ash pit and eating them with great gusto.  She has chronic pancreatitis and we have been careful with her diet her entire life as a severe attack can kill quickly.  So this sudden attraction for heat beads has me and the vet totally baffled and a bit worried.

In the last couple of years she has gone off her normal diet of special low fat dog biscuits, low fat tinned meat, and has refused to eat anything except a special 'dog roll' (pressed meat in plastic tubes like polony/fritz/devon/luncheon meat). 

I thought she was going off dog biscuits because her old teeth were struggling with them, but she has no trouble munching through half a heat bead!   

Rebecca [Australian Char Assistant Brand Manager] has assured me there is nothing in them that could be harmful and said maybe it's the tummy calming effect of charcoal that is the attraction.  She hasn't heard of dogs eating them before either. 

Feedback more than welcome - especially if it helps us work out what has prompted this behaviour all of a sudden

LG   :)

The only thing I can think of is that she is suddenly lacking in something and she has found it in the heat beads. Animals seems to know. I have seen wild goats go to certain rock areas and lick the rock as they must get some mineral or such from it.

Jeff

LG, at her age if its not making her sick and she is enjoying them just let her go for it   ;D

Not uncommon for any animal to eat charcoal.  As said, nothing in them that will hurt. :)

This is the same dog that stuck her nose up at the meat that came out of the camp oven and earlier this year became a skeleton for a while until we found something she would eat (the dog roll).
It is a heck of a chore to get her to eat anything these days. 
Even the dog roll has to be cut up into 1cm cubes or she'll only pick at it. 

This sudden interest is what has the vet and I wondering why. She has totally ignored them for the last 12 months.  So what has made her eat them now and can we use that to get her to eat more of other foods!

Maybe she has figured out the charcoal helps calm the stomache ... shrugs

Fingers crossed she will continue to eat enough to maintain a healthy weight, with or without the heat beads  :-)

Our little Demelza eats the rice and chicken roll from VIP.

Hasn't touched the Heat Beads yet. :)

Derek, the dog roll has literally been a life saver since she gradually stopped eating everything else and lost so much weight she was just skin and bones.  She won't even eat raw meat anymore - skinless chicken breast used to be her favourite.

We tried a few different dog rolls - the only one she would eat to start with was perfect because it was only 2% fat - about the same level as other foods she tolerated well.
Then the company in Perth [I think they are a subsidiary for VIP] stopped making it and the only one I've found so far that she will eat is the plague buster roll. It has a slightly higher fat content which may be irritating her - leading to wanting the charcoal in the heatbeads... maybe...

That is the theory the vet and I are operating under at the moment, unless we can come up with some other reason for it.  The only other idea was maybe she is using the heatbeads as a toothbrush because bones are to hard for her now. Being 'powdered' charcoal, so to speak, she is using the charcoal to clean her teeth but they aren't as hard to chew as bones.  Again, we are guessing.

The vet asked me if it was common for dogs to eat heat beads, as in was there a particular ingredient in them that attracted dogs, but I had never seen or heard of it before.  Even that wouldn't explain why she had no interest in them 12 months ago and only started eating them a few weeks back.

With our fire restrictions now in place I can't legally light heat beads in town so I will have to do some heavy negotiations with my Chief.   After all, it is possibly a life and death situation!

Had a dog many years ago that couldn't tolerate red meat.  She used to bleed internally when she ate it.  She used to eat tinned sardines and rice.  Back then the No Frills brand in oil were 60 cents so was quite cheap.

A very astute vet diagnosed a canine form of Chromes disease.

Although there was no real treatment she did survive.

My Blue Heeler loves cold, fresh redgum charcoal out of the fire pit.

Glad he doesn't go for the heat beads, as he has a "ring of fire" on charcoal.

Gazz

Combine the lack of appetite/refusal to eat with not drinking enough, and my old girl has become aneamic and dehydrated. 
Latest round of blood tests this morning show she is going into kidney failure.     :'(

Poor thing.  :'(

Sorry to hear that LG, it's very distressing when pets are unwell :'(

Sorry to hear LG but it seems the time has come.  :( We sure do get attached to our pets.

Jeff

Mine eats them all the time as well, no visable signs that they are effecting her in anyway so I didn't worry about it.

Tell you though, she has got the whitest teeth  ;D

Cheers
Paul

Our dog ate chocolate a few weeks back and the cure, to stop the posioning from chocolate was to feed him liquid charcoal 35mls over a four hour period.  Terrible stuff, but it saved his life.  After the first dose he went into shock and was barely breathing and so a ruch back to the vet and we we told that he didn't have enough electrodes ( right words worry) so he was given water injected into his back etc and then we had to continue with the charcoal.  So perhaps you dog is self medicating for some reason?  Charcoal absorbs  poisons rapidly from the system.

Apparently charcoal is also beneficial in reducing flatulence in dogs.