Puppy Eats Poop

A very annoying habit that a dog can have is to eat his own poop or other animals poop. Even though this is a very common problem for a dog eating his poop it could cause health hazards to the dog. This habit of dog eating poop is known as Coprophagia. It is the ingestion of poop that is neither accidental nor incidental but is deliberate and habitual. Dogs are not humans and so their sensibilities are very different from us what taste good and smell good for them may not for us.

There are many reasons why puppy eats poop; stress, boredom, or a nutritional imbalance. Some puppies could be eating their poop so as to keep their area clean or rather the hose clean. It could be a genetic issue as well or maybe just the taste for them is good. It could also be because your dog has got worms or parasites as these suck out the nutrients from the food your dog has eaten your dog could feel hungry more often. Another reason could be if your puppy has pooped in the house, he could have eaten it to avoid you from getting angry at him. A mother who has just given birth to her puppies cleans their whelping area so her puppies do not suffer from any health problems.

If you see your dog eating feces try and consult a veteran immediately to know the exact cause or even for consultation on how to stop this problem. If it due to worms that the dog has you could give him a de-worming tablet after consulting a vet.  In case it is due to nutritional imbalance give your dog dry kibble which is high in nutrition’s. Also if it is due to stress or boredom try and spend some quality time with your dog by playing with them talking to them. If you take you dog out for a walk use a leash and pull him away when he goes near any poop so as to make him aware that it dirt or wrong. Do this until he stops this habit. Keep the dog area clean and tidy. Adding a little bit of pineapple, pumpkin or spinach to their food will be good as these things taste horrible in their poop. So they will stop this habit. It is however best to consult a vet before adding anything to your dog’s food to check what will suit your dog best.

Read on how to stop dog eating cat poop.

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.