Puppy keeps eating mushrooms

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wahoowad

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Dec 19, 2005
1,685
Virginia
This spring we've had 3 instances of our puppy seemingly tripping out on mushrooms growing in the yard. One was bad and she kept screaming and we took her to the emergency vet at 5 AM. It was horrible. Her 3rd episode was late yesterday afternoon/evening where she became very subdued, made some random yelps and just acting unusual. The mushrooms are mostly popping up where I dump raked up leaves, grass clipping, fallen branches but last year I also dumped a few yards of wood chips from stumps we had ground up.

I'm thinking these mushrooms are so prolific because of these decomposing wood chips. Not sure if this Spring (Virginia) had any other contributing factors. But when I rake/shovel up the mushrooms they seem to have a large white stringy root system that both spreads horizontally and goes into the ground such that it is hard to get it all up. I initially put a fence around the 20' compost pile, then had to put a 2nd fence up around the first in a larger diameter because the mushrooms were popping up on the ground. When small the mushrooms look dark and shiny like deer poop and this pup loves deer poop.

Some helpful mushroom folks ID'd them as Psilocybe Ovoideocystidiata. I've read you can spray them with duluted vinegar and considered loading up my 4-gal backpack sprayer, but I really have to shovel them up and toss them over the fence because spraying would leave them decomposing in the yard. Anybody know of any other treatment that can hopefully effect the root system and/or prevent spores from generating new growth?
 
Check your soil PH and remediate it to where the mushrooms don't like it, which somewhat what you are doing with the vinegar. You are going to have train her to stay away from the mushrooms. I lost one Brittany to Blastomicrocses ( spelling?) Basicly fungus growing in the lungs from spors. One of my top hunting dogs at the time. That was a extremely hard loss for me.
 
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It is funny my Springer and German short hair sniff mushrooms
and back off as if to say they an't good for me. Maybe I am just lucky
Good luck with your pup
 
You’ll have to change the habitat to keep them from growing. Dry the area out. Sun and wind, etc.
 
Sorry to hear about your Brittany. I'm trying to prevent the similar thing here.
 
The micorrhizal (underground network) will be too large to allow pulling out. And many parts are too thin to see.
 
Interesting question. Why is the dog repeatedly self-medicating? One has to wonder the effects on the canine brain.