Poop eater

[katew888]

My one year old JUST started eating poop this week!  He has never done this before, nor have I ever owned a dog before him that has (luckily), but I know it is common.  Our highrise has an offleash dog park, and of course, people often "forget" to pick up...I'd like for him to still be able to go out in the dogpark, but it's become a game: grab the poop, munch, and run.  It's awful!  How do I stop this nasty habit??

[ginger899]

You know, I have for a long time suspected there was something wrong with most dog food, because of the way it still smells the same when it comes out the other end! This has given me a bad feeling, so I switched my dog's dry food a while back to something better. She still eats a very small amount of canned, but I think I'll stop this and give her home cooked meat/fish instead.

[katew888]

Good advice!  I might try the old Tabasco and see how that works!  I am NOT embarrassed :)  He has yet to eat his own poop that I've noticed, so I'll hold off on the pineapple chunks (he is also epileptic, so I don't want to mess up his diet too much in case it is a trigger).  As far as the vitamin deficiency goes, would that suddenly occur even if I haven't recently changed his food (he eats CANIDAE)?  Thoughts on supplements?

[Ghilly]

The cheaper quality dog foods today are not able to be fully digested, so to a dog, whose sense of smell is a thousand times sharper than our own, the poop smells just like food, and in fact, it contains a LOT of undigested nutrients.  So if your dog is lacking a vitamin or mineral from its own diet, it will eat poo (the real term is coprophagia) in order to supply what is lacking.  Sometimes they do it because they are bored.  

There are a couple of things you can do here.  The first, obviously, is to provide your dog with a high quality vitamin supplement so that if he's eating the poo due to a lack of a vitamin or mineral, the supplement will provide it instead.  The other thing you can do, but this will only prevent the dog from eating his OWN poo, unless you can get everyone at the dog park to do it as well, is to feed your dog pineapple chunks.  The pineapple will give the poo an absolutely AWFUL taste as far as the dog's concerned and he will stop eating it.  Perhaps, if he's a smart dog, he will be so turned off by the taste of his own poo that he will avoid it all just because of the memory of how bad his own tasted.

Ghilly

[ginger899]

Far as I'm concerned, a dash of Tabasco sauce can make almost anything taste wonderful!! (Oh boy! Did I really SAY THAT just now?) What is the matter with me....?
Seriously now......this bad habit is called Copraphagia. It's not necessarily linked to a vitamin deficiency, but you could perhaps make sure your dog is getting a good quality healthy balanced diet, to be on the safe side.

The tabasco idea is a very good one. I checked this out, and as far as I can find out, the best solutions to stop the habit are practical ones (which I suppose include sprinkling poo with Tabasco!) Happy walkies!!

[Lady_Baglady]

I did this for my oldest dog, and it worked, but I'm not sure what your dog is like so I'm just throwing out suggestions.

When I walk my dog (recently that has turned into dogs, but the other one doesn't eat poop, not yet anyway)  I carry around a very tiny thing of the hottest Tabasco sauce I can find. My grandpa taught me that. All the children in the neighborhood think I'm insane because I run around sprinkling Tabasco sauce on fecal matter in the park/along the way. But, if you're not embarrassed to run around doing this then maybe try that. At first, I didn't want to because it seemed really mean to the dog, but I'd rather him experience something hot than eat feces ya know? It doesn't hurt them, they just find it unpleasant. Eventually he will associate the poop with being nasty tasting. Dogs eat poo because it usually comes out smelling the same way it did in the dog bowl (to them) so, they think, hey, this smells like what I eat, I should eat it, etc. I've also heard that some dogs do it because they need more vitamin B in their diets,  but I don't know.

Good luck!