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Help my dog eats poop!

Brett

Why does my dog eat poop?

•   Susan says:

  May 08th, 2008 at 12:40 AM

  Sometimes we don't know why a particular dog starts eating poop, but certain conditions can trigger the behavior. Since some of these indicate a dog who needs help, you'll want to consider them as possibilities for what is going on with your dog.

  1. A dog with a physical problem that causes excessive hunger, pain, or other sensations may resort to eating feces. If your adult dog who has not previously had this habit suddenly develops it, take the dog to your veterinarian for a check-up.

  2. A dog who is not getting enough to eat or is going too long between meals may eat feces. Your veterinarian can help you evaluate the dog's weight and can suggest a feeding schedule and amount. Sometimes it takes experimentation to see what works best for a particular dog.

  3. A dog with intestinal parasites or other condition that creates blood or other fecal changes may eat feces. One dog may eat the feces of another dog who is shedding something like this in the stools. A fresh fecal specimen to your veterinarian for evaluation can detect some of these problems.

  4. Sometimes a change of diet helps. There doesn't seem to be any one food that is right for all dogs, and your dog may need something different than you're currently feeding. Be sure to make any changes of diet gradual, mixing the new food in with the old over a period of several days or weeks, to give the dog's intestines time to adjust and avoid diarrhea from the change.

  5. Some dogs develop a mental connection that they will be punished if their humans find them in the same room with feces. Dogs react to this fearful situation in various ways, and one way is to eat the feces so it will not be there to make the human angry. This is one of many reasons not to use punishment when housetraining a dog.

  6. Boredom can cause dogs to do all sorts of things, including eat feces. Interesting toys that have treats inside them for the dog to get out can help with lots of boredom-based problems.

  7. Dogs may do just about any wild thing when suffering from separation anxiety. If that is the problem, this won't be the only symptom, and you'll want to help your dog work through the separation anxiety.

  The number-one thing you can do to help overcome feces eating is to keep your dog's area clean of feces.  Some people swear by food additives to stop a dog from eating feces.  After the dog has been prevented from eating feces for a considerable length of time, the habit tends to fade.

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• Eliza suggests:

  January 30th, 2009 at 05:23 PM

  To stop that you could try feeding him pineapple they won't eat it if that's "inside". Plus my dogs used to do it and we did that + we put some powdered stuff for their food that make's the poop taste bad. After a while they grow out of it. (if all goes wrong you don't have to pick up poop. J.K.) P.S.- If one dog start's and another dog see's he try's it, so you might want to consider keeping your dog away from others for a bit... That might even be how your dog started but some just do it.

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• User suggests:

  July 21st, 2009 at 02:28 PM

  If a dog eats the pineapple to begin with why wouldn't they eat it when it's in the poop?

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• Lily suggests:

  July 29th, 2009 at 01:31 AM

  some dogs like mine, like to try things for the first time. which could help untill you could get powder stuff. but if your dog likes it then that is easy, but you should try somthing else because they like it. if they don't then you should probably either catch them in the act and punish them, stop giving them good food (j.k. j.k.) get that pwder, or pick up the poop more frequently. My dog does this too so we just punish her because we watch her.

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