puppy eating own poo

sachamama · 09-05-2006 12:09pm #1

im sick of this now, she is nearly a full year old. the vet said add eggshells to the food but to no avail.
what can we do? when she looks up at me with her little puppy eyes wanting to be loved all i can think of is " you eat your own poo dont come near me with that smelly mouth of yours"
help!

SuzyS1972 · 09-05-2006 12:38pm

Hi
Sometimes puppies / dogs can eat their own pooh if their diet is too rich - say fed tins of meat etc - also if their diet is inadequate they can also eat their own poo - Normal for dogs - disgusting for us.

I would consider - if you are not already doing so - changing the dogs food to a high quality dried food such as Burns / Royal Canin appropriate for the breed / size of the dog.

Also add some pineapple or courgette to the dogs food - when digested this is disgusting and not very appealing to the dog at all and will stop them eating the poo if the change in diet doesn't work.

FillSpectre · 09-05-2006 1:49pm

The puppy is just acting like its mother who cleaned the bedding this way when the puppy were with her. There are additives you can get for food which make it unpleasant for the dog and this stops them.

Diet can be a factor but puppies will tend to do it anyway regardless of diet. Some dogs never get out of it so it isimportant to stop it early on. THe best start is to keep the area clean. With a scent spray and a bit of attention you can have your dog house trained in less than a week.

joejoem · 09-05-2006 1:56pm

FillSpectre wrote:

With a scent spray and a bit of attention you can have your dog house trained in less than a week.

*Perks up ears and tilts head

What is a scent spray?

sachamama · 09-05-2006 3:17pm

thanks for that, the diet sounds good, also the scent spray! where can i get some?

SuzyS1972 · 09-05-2006 3:32pm

Do you mean " training spray " ?
This is a spray you put on newspapers for very young puppies - it smells like wee basically and encourages the dog to pee on the paper it's sprayed on.
If it's the same thing I cannot see how it would benefit a one year old dog. If it's not the same then I've got it wrong

poo eating is behavorial and needs to be phased out by eliminating the wrong diet and adding the pineapple / courgette to the food.

FillSpectre · 09-05-2006 3:59pm

"Training spray" is a scent spray that makes the dog want to pee there. Is smells like wee to them not to you. It doesn't have to be on paper and can be used to encorage them to go to a spot you want. The usual additive of rewards for their effort encourgaes them to do it where you want. Good if you have a small garden.

Any good pet store will have the stuff. I would also recommend bitter apple spary to discourage chewing of certain things. If pineapple works use it, first I have heard of it. A great recommendation is get your dog to eat carrots. I was on a diet when I got our pup and as a result he associates carrots with people food and treats them like a bone. THe other dog just doesn't have any interest and we are constatnly trying to get him to eat less proccessed food.

RotalicaV · 09-05-2006 4:03pm

Eat some of your own poo and see what all the fuss is about.

Sigma Force · 09-05-2006 4:28pm

Pineapple works brilliant, give it a go. Also when she does a poo try and pick it up asap so she can't get at it, I know that can be difficult sometimes.
Pineapple worked great for my poochy

Freedomfighter · 10-05-2006 9:27pm

sachamama wrote:

im sick of this now, she is nearly a full year old. the vet said add eggshells to the food but to no avail.
what can we do? when she looks up at me with her little puppy eyes wanting to be loved all i can think of is " you eat your own poo dont come near me with that smelly mouth of yours"
help!

It is instinct for dogs sometimes to eat their own excrement. In the wild they would do just this so not to attract other dogs. Try catch the dog doing his business and pick it up straight away. You can get the dog out of this habbit but it being a year old its going to take time. Ill PM with tips.

Dave! · 11-05-2006 12:38am

Freedomfighter wrote:

Ill PM with tips.

You should post them here if ya can, cos other people might have the same problem and it'd help them!

Freedomfighter · 11-05-2006 6:29am

Apologies i meant to say id reply later.... well here goes

Coprohagia is the technical term for eating feces. This has been studied in dogs by several people with no definitive answer for "why" being found.

Nutritional deficiencies may be present in some dogs, but not very many. This may be boredom related in many dogs. It has some "natural" roots in the fact that dams often eat their pup's stools, apparently as a method of hiding their presence from predators. Dogs will eat the stools of other species, especially cats and rabbits, too. Dogs obviously do not find the taste of feces objectionable or the behavior would be self correcting. So I think of this as a natural behavior that upsets people. Since dogs have to live with people, it is becomes an issue. There is a product sold that is supposed to help with this habit -- Forbid. It doesn't work in all cases (it might not even work in most cases). Another alternative is putting meat tenderizer in the dog's food. This works for some dogs. Walking a dog on a leash and working hard to keep it from turning and eating its stool is helpful. It is sometimes possible to distract the dog by running a short distance after the dog has a bowel movement or by taking a couple of rapid steps then telling the dog to "sit" and giving it a treat. These behaviors may stay on as substitutes to eating the stool. If you can keep the dog from eating stool for a month or so it is sometimes long enough to break the habit. Picking up stool to prevent its ingestion works in dogs that don't quickly eat their own stool but do so when put in the yard alone. "Booby trapping" a sample of stool by cutting it in half lengthwise, and putting some Tabasco type sauce on the inside of the stool, then putting it back together so that the dog is not aware of the hotsauce until it eats the stool can help in some cases. This can be a hard habit to break

Tori · 12-05-2006 2:19am

Hey thanks for the pineapple/courgette tip - I'm going to try it out and will let you know if it works.
Sorry Freedomfighter, but as for your 'Booby Trapping' method is concerned, I think I'll just let her eat the poo..........after all, it hasn't killed her yet!

Coonagh Cowboy · 12-05-2006 6:26am

Tori wrote:

Hey thanks for the pineapple/courgette tip - I'm going to try it out and will let you know if it works.
Sorry Freedomfighter, but as for your 'Booby Trapping' method is concerned, I think I'll just let her eat the poo..........after all, it hasn't killed her yet!

Alot of times animals will eat their own feces because of lacking usually iron in their diets,so might want to find a vitamin or add a iron supplement to the dogs food and see how it gets on

Sigma Force · 12-05-2006 9:35am

Except for guinea pigs and rabbits and some other small critters who just eat it to gross you out

peasant · 12-05-2006 11:54am

First off, dogs are omnivores and also offal eaters by nature. Other animals' excrements can be a perfectly natural and "legitimate" food source for them.

While they have no sense of "disgust" dogs still usually do not eat their own fecies. If they do, it is usually a sign of a bad diet, some form of illness or simple boredom and habit. Once the dog has been checked thoroughly by a vet and all diet / illness issues have been ruled out eating of own fecies can only be bad behaviour/ bad habit and needs to be erradicated.

Secondly, you should not allow your dog to eat anything off the ground without your permission, best not at all. There are many things out there (rat and fox poisons being one example) that could simply kill your dog.

Thirdly, why this reliance on some "products", "tricks" or other little helpers? Just watch your dog and train your dog. Simply do not allow it to eat anything that wasn't given to it by you. Don't feed it on the ground, always from its bowl. Don't throw treats around for it to pick them up ...feed them by hand. This way your dog will learn from habit that everything edible comes from you. At the same time constantly re-inforce the message that picking up stuff is "No-No" and simply not allowed.
And for those cases where you weren't watchful enough, also train it to spit out / give up anything it has in its mouth on command.

Takes some work and vigilance ...but works.

Tori · 13-05-2006 12:26pm

Are you seriously saying that when your back is turned, you're dog doesn't swallow?!

peasant · 13-05-2006 6:11pm

err ... yes ...

They simply have never "learned" that there is food on the ground ...because we didn't give them the opportunity to pick anything up. Now they're just not looking anymore.

Having said that, we live in the country, they have a huge run and we don't go out into "civilisation" that often.

I wouldn't quite want to vouch for them if we had to walk past the spills of a fish&chip shop every day.

But the basic principle works ...

Tori · 14-05-2006 11:49pm

Well, training on that scale is out of the question for my dog as she is 11½ now so her bad habits would be well ingrained. I think I'll stick to the pineapple/courgette idea thanks.

puppy eating own poo

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