Dog Eating Cat Poop

As absurd and revolting as this may seem dogs eat cat poop quite commonly, and there is in fact even a medical term for this behavior. Coprophagia is a medical term that quite literally means ‘consumption of poop’. This of course only refers to the deliberate consumption of feces, not accidental. Walking in on your dog eating feces can come as a big shock and be revolting to most pet owners, but more so to first time dog owners. But this is not an unheard of problem and it something you will learn to deal with and prevent.

The problem of a dog eating poop is most prevalent among puppies, but this behavior can also persist in adult dogs. Coprophagia is simply another canine eating abnormality just like pica, which is the consumption of non food materials, or psychogenic water drinking, which refers to excessive and almost compulsive water drinking. There hasn’t been adequate research into the subject of dogs eating feces, which is why identifying the cause is to a large extent a guessing game for veterinarians. But dogs are not the only species to demonstrate such behavior. In most cases this behavior is observed in herbivores like rabbits, where their diet consists of hard to digest plant matter, which is why you could say there are two attempts or a recycling attempt to minimize wastage of nutrients.

Dogs on the other hand do not have a similar problem, but this behavior in other species does give us some insight into dog behavior. It is known that many animals like dogs consume feces because of vitamins that are present in it, produced from intestinal bacterial activity. These vitamins can not be absorbed trough the intestinal wall, which is why it isn’t uncommon to find a dog eating poop instinctively to ingest those vitamins. Very often dogs eat cat poop for the simple reason that cat’s being purely carnivorous produce feces that is high in protein.

In the case of a nursing mother, the bitch will eat the feces of her offspring simply for the purpose of keeping the den clean. This behavior is shared with a variety of other species like cats, and is not abnormal. According to some dog behavioral experts dogs may also eat other dog’s feces to get rid of it as dogs sometimes tend to mark their territory with poop. Researchers also point to the fact that wolves and coyotes often eat their own feces during times of scarcity, and this may be instinctive behavior passed on to dogs. In food shortages they may even consume the feces of herbivores, because of the presence of necessary B vitamins in it.