Dog eating own stools
What comes out should stay out
Owners may be pretty surprised and react with a touch of disgust when their dog decides to ingest what just came out the other end.
This can be a pretty common practice in the wild, where dogs may eat their own feces and other animal's feces as well.
Nothing may beat the sense of delight dogs feel when they get into rabbit poop. These tasty little pellets provides them with fiber but in some cases can cause intestinal upset.
The habit of eating feces has a name that may sound complicated, it is called coprophagia. But why do dogs really eat their own feces?
From a health related point of view eating feces may be the result of some malabsorption issue affecting the dog that produces the feces. The feces may contain some undigested food resulting somewhat appetible to the dog. A vet should check why these dogs are not absorbing nutrients properly.
In other cases the dog may be lacking nutrients that may be found in feces or the dog may simply be hungry.
A common cause is a dog eating too fast and therefore, the food is undigested thus feces are tastier. This affects those dogs that finish their bowl of food in seconds. You can slow the dog down if he eats too fast by adding large pebbles in the food bowl. You must be very careful though if he tends to eat rocks-. Some dogs especially Golden Retreivers just love to ingest non food items. Som make sure the dog is monitored or the rocks large enough to prevent him from trying to ingst them.
Psychologically, a dog may decide to eat feces because of boredom or stress. Boredom can be relieved by giving more toys or keeping the dog occupied in other activities. A toy stuffed with a treat hard to get out may provide hours of playing.
Some dogs have also been seen eating their feces when they have been punished for inappropriate elimination. The pet perceives that the presence of feces are bad when the owner sees them around and therefore decides to eat them to make them magically disappear.
In any case regardless of its causes,eating feces is bad because the dog may ingest parasites continuously infecting and re-infesting itself.
The behavior must be stopped.
Make sure the pet's diet is complete and that he is fed properly.
Slow him down if he eats too fast. Read my hub on how to slow down dog eating fast.
Use some special products available to put on the feces to make them taste awful.These can be found at any major health store or online.You may ask for "Deter" or "Forbid". They are very effective in breaking the bad habit.
If you catch your dog in action, re-direct him and get his attention to something else.
Pick up feces the best you can so there are less chances of enforcing the behavior.
Prevent boredom by providing plenty of stimulation.
Hopefully, the remedies above should deter your pet from continuing to engage in this distasteful habit, more often than not a combination of remedies seems to be the most effective versus trying only one. Please have your dog checked out if you suspect there are health related causes and have him regularly dewormed to prevent re-infestations.
