Dog's Mercury danger

And www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/mercurialis_perennis.htm

trishs Dogs Mercury is not a horrible plant but it is definitely a woodland plant. As someone who's hobby is landscape archaeology it is an indicator plant of ancient woodland and in local woods where at sometime the woodland expanded over farmland the boundary between the two is indicated by the Dogs Mercury on the ancient woodland side and blue bells on the later wooded area.

There are many plants that are poisonous to one species or another. I would not let my DGC eat Deadly Nightshade berries nor chew on foxgloves they would both do them a lot of harm, but I certainly would not call them horrid plants. They are just plants poisonous to humans and Dogs Mercury is poisonous to dogs. The name says it all.

Dogs mercury is only likely to be found in ancient woodland so it is unlikely to be found in urban parks, it neither spreads easily nor fast so the only dogs in danger are country dogs walking regularly in woodland that has been in place for 6 or 7 hundred years.

I didn't know that dogs chewed plants!

Thank you for this Flickety very interesting. Yes though, if my dog is anything to go by, yes they do chew plants; particularly young dogs.

My dog went into the garden last night and I found her eating ivy; she then wanted a walk down to the end of the road where she wouldn't stop eating grass. Was expecting a dog with a poorly tummy late last night/this morning but she's fine. Not sure what was up with her.

Grace likes a nice bit of grass when she has a tummy upset and if the grass is too short she has a go at the ornamental grasses in the border which must be really tough. She usually sicks it up within a few minutes - if I am lucky it is while she is still outside - but not always

FlicketyB I have to disagree. I call it horrible because it spreads relentlessly and kills animals which ingest it in a horrible slow way. As I mentioned in my contribution to the linked thread, three of our sheep (kept specifically to graze the meadow) fell victim to it before I was able to figure out why they were dying. I was brought up to know my plants but until then I was not aware of the toxicity of this particular plant. It may indeed be indiginous to ancient woodland but it is now rife on our ancient hillside having crept out from the shadows on the boundaries. We, and Natural England, have so far not been able to find an effective means of stopping it spreading. It has now also infiltrated our wild garden area which borders our part of the triple S.I. Our land is adjacent to a similarly protected larger site owned by the council on which many local people do actually exercise their dogs regularly.
www.leeds.gov.uk/leisure/Pages/Townclose-Hills-Local-Nature-Reserve.aspx

Sounds like the similar problem of ragwort; I think there was a government initiative to control that a while back but it still seems to be as bad as ever.

trish what you say is really interesting because it looks as if Dogs Mercury is changing both its habitat and its growth pattern.

Until now its habitat has been ancient woodland and it has been a very slow growing, slow spreading plant. The reason I can see the dividing line between bluebells and Dogs Mercury in local woodland is because, once it reaches the edge of the ancient woodland it does not spread further because the soil in 'recent' (only a few hundred years old) woodland does not provide the right growing conditions. After several hundred years of this 'new' woodland it has still not been colonised by Dogs Mercury.

Is the Dogs Mercury in your area exactly the same species, right the way down the botanical hierarchy or is it a mutated versiom? Now that would be really interesting

I really don't know the answer to your final question, FlicketyB. I just wish we could get some help from professionals in the field. The chap from Natural England is doing his best to find out more but this was his last report via email on 4th November : "Specialist advice on the control of dog’s mercury is proving to be difficult to find but I’ve a couple of avenues to explore yet." I have already tried writing to the RHS (who replied) and Countryside Magazine (who haven't) to ask for more specialist information and interest in the situation.

Re the bluebells, we do have a few but only in the lower area of the hillside I think (not fit enough these days to survey all the area personally). I suspect that intensive bluebell growth would actually prevent the dog's mercury from spreading. Sadly there seems to be no plant capable of putting up a fight where it is spreading. I'm not sure if it is spreading on the council site but even if it is it would be of less concern there as that land doesn't get grazed but is cut by large lowers which cannot access our site because of the boundaries and steepness of the hillside.

Our dog, like many, enjoys chomping on various herbage from time to time so we keep her under strict supervision or on the lead when in that area of our garden.

Actually, the dog part of the name is a reference to the plant's commonness, not to the fact that it is poisonous to dogs. It occurs in other common plant names, e.g. dog violet, dog daisy, dog rose.

My dog has been eating this stuff for 2 years now, when it’s about. He loves it .He goes out of his way to eat it
I managed to get an app to find out what it was and it came up with dogs Mercury. Which I then googled and found this forum. Has anyone else dog been eating this ? Obviously I ll stop him now , hopefully no long term effects but he’s fine now