Does Your Dog Eat Poop?

For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

Eating poop has lately been the most common question I’ve received from readers. Sometimes the dog has been eating its own poop; other times it’s been the poop of other dogs or cats. People are grossed out (hey, I procrastinated on writing this!) and they want their dogs to stop.

Coprophagia is the scientific name for this habit. There are reasons to do your best to deter it. Dogs can pick up worms from eating other dog’s wastes. You don’t want to be kissed by your dog after it has done this. 

What works to stop a dog from eating feces?

• The most important step is to use physical control: Clean up the poop your dogs produce at home, and if there is a poopy area where you walk your dogs, either go a different way or keep your dog very close to you on leash.
• There are products on the market that are said to make the poop taste bad to dogs… Dis-Taste, Forbid, and Deter are some I have heard of. Someone said that they hadn’t worked for her dog, but no one remedy will work for everyone. Alternatively, a little pineapple or pumpkin added to your dog’s meal may have the same effect.
• Another approach can be to put some hot sauce on some poop in your yard. The idea is that if a dog has an unpleasant experience , he will avoid eating poop in the future. I have my doubts about this because the baited poop will smell very different from normal ones.
• It is possible that your dog is hungry. Try feeding roughly the same amount of food but more frequently. It’s also possible that the dog food you are offering is lacking in something; try feeding a higher quality diet.
• Sometimes dogs who eat feces are deficient in biotin. Try giving them a little brewer’s yeast, or other good sources are egg yolk, liver, lentils or other beans.

They say that most dogs outgrow the habit, so be patient! And if you have any solutions that have worked for you, please let me know!

Ending Access to a Cat Litterbox

As for eating cat poop, physical controls seem to be the solution. For example, we currently have two indoor cats, and their covered litterbox is under the bathroom sink, with the entrance facing the back wall. That was good enough to stop our older dog from checking it out, but when we added a Rottweiler puppy to the family, she soon found the litterbox and had a great time. More than once. Yuck. Kelly fashioned a long hook and eye for the bathroom door — the hook is about 6 inches long and since it is made of heavy gauge wire, when it’s latched the cats can go through but nobody else can. We quickly formed the habit of keeping that door latched all the time, except of course when we want to shut the door completely. Here  is the latch on the bathroom door… a hardware store may have something like this:

And this photo, taken from inside the bathroom with the latch in place, shows just how far our pup can put her nose… not far enough to get into trouble:

[tags] dogs eating poop, coprophagia [/tags]

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