So, funny story about my dog...

[jerrodm]

I brewed a spiced christmas beer a week or so ago. As per my usual habit, I dumped the spent grains from the mash in my compost pile, out in the back corner of my yard. I keep asking SWMBO to do something with them, it seems like such a waste to just toss them, but at least they'll end up as compost, right?

So the next day I come home from work and SWMBO is in the living room scrubbing the rug. She turns to me and says, "I think the dog is really sick--she's been throwing up all day and it has this really strange smell." I go over to the spot where she's cleaning and give it a sniff, and I detect cloves, star anise and a little cinnamon. Apparently, my dog ate about 3 lbs. of spent grain from my brew and then proceeded to sick it up all over the house! I apologized to SWMBO, and promised to mix in the spent grains from now on to keep the dog out of them. Maybe I should just accept it and start making dog biscuits!

I should've figured this would be a problem--my dog is a notorious airlock sniffer. I wonder if she's been eating the grains all this time, and the spices just happened to upset her stomach?

 

[Disintegr8or]

My dogs will eat spent grains like crazy. I have to take them to the back of the property and toss them over the fence into my woods.

 

[ajdelange]

This is funny? In my house under such circumstances they become my dogs and the situation would stay static until I got home and did the cleanup. That's why I'm not laughing.

But on a more serious note - spent hops are toxic to dogs more so in some breeds than others. Greyhounds are unusually susceptible if I recall so yes, your dog was really sick and you need to take care that she doesn't get into spent hops in the future. I am assuming here, of course, that you dumped the hops with the grain.

 

[jerrodm]

I know about the problem of hop toxicity--this was just spent grain, as I don't put hops in with the mash. And I'm sure if I'd been home I would have been the one cleaning it up. As it was I got an earful, but I was laughing so hard I don't think it made her feel any better.

Like I said, I don't know if she's been eating them all this time or not--I've never seen her sick up any grains in the past, and I've been dumping them back there for at least several months. I think maybe it was just the spices. That couldn't have been fun to throw back up.