How to keep your dog from eating other dogs stool?

[Shannon Querry]

Fleury girl is eating other dogs poo at doggie daycare :( This is most likely how she caught giardia a few months ago and now it's making her sick! She threw up twice yesterday after eating the poo and while she had a normal BM last night, had total diarrhea this morning! I know there are ways to keep her from eating her own stool but the options seem limited as to how to keep her from eating the other dogs poop!

 

The dog trainer at the kennel recommended doing one of those wire muzzles on her while she's out :( I have to say that doesn't make me feel very comfortable and without the proper training to go along with it I don't see how she won't just go right back to doing it again!

 

Anyone else deal with this and have any advice as to what to do?

Thanks!

[1xar0x2rcx0li]

I would ask the daycare to pick it up! They need to maintain sanitary conditions. Unless she is eatin git as it comes out of the other dog it should be picked up quickly. You are paying them serious money and they should be working for it. I have heard rumors about putting things in dogs food to make in unpalatable, but mostly with mixed results. And you cant feed it to somebody elses dog anyway. Does she do this at home? Do you feed her right before daycare?

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I couldn't agree more! At our Daycare, the dogs go out a few at a time, and the feces are always picked up immediately. I've watched it. There is a Daycare worker who stands there with his "tools" and picks up the mess as soon as it hits the ground...and I mean that literally.

[Camilla and Darwin]

I agree with everyone. You can always train her to not eat her own poop, or even others, when you are with her. But while she is at daycare it's their job to make sure the poop is picked up immediately. Otherwise, dogs could eat, step or roll in each other's poop, which is disgusting!

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

First of all the daycare people should remove all feces on time I think. No one wants that the dogs step into into it or even worse while playing fall over and roll in it.
But this is one of my all time favourite topics anyway as I HAD a poop eater as well. Yes, after eating 2 years other dog's poop he is finally cured. Sorry it is a long post but I think worth reading.


I have to let you know that I live in Europe, in the Netherlands to be precise. In parks and woods and all public green areas dog owners "should" remove the feces of their dogs but it doesn't happen in most places. We do pay dog taxes and therefore the cities are cleaning all those areas as well but not often enough. You can imagine that you will find piles of poop on every walk. Benny was since he was a puppy a poop eater and a very picky one. He didn't eat all poop but only poop he found "interesting". We tried really everything to cure this ugly habit. Benny didn't respond to anything but only improved in tricking us to get to the poop in the end.

We also tried a muzzle but here is your reply to your daycare people what will happen when wearing a muzzle: The dog will start "stamping" which means pushing his mouth with the muzzle deep into the pile of poop and then licking the poop through the muzzle. This will definitely not work I know from experience and sorry for all the disgusted faces of the readers of this post.

Another factor is that by eating poop the whole digestion system of the dog will become disturbed which will lead to only more poop eating. So to start with we put Benny for 2 weeks on a RAW meat with rice diet only to detox his digestion system. During this time no off leash running, strict monitoring so that he had no chance to pick up anything from the ground and no treats and no rawhide chewtoys.

After these 2 weeks we attended a workshop for poop eating dogs. Yes, it really exists in the Netherlands lol.
The workshop uses how they call it the negative reward method. Meaning they condition that a certain thing means: I do not get it. As a training aid we used the dog training discs:

But you can use also a ring of keys or a metal chain.
To begin with you put a treat on the ground in front of the dog while kneeling and facing the dog. In the moment the dog tries to get the treat you snatch the treat and with your other hand you drop the training discs. After a few times the dog will learn: when I hear the sound of the training discs that means that I don't get the treat.
You will realize already after doing it 4 or 5 times the dog will not try to get the treat anymore but will look at you instead not knowing what to do. When the dog left the treat alone and looks at you instead you feed another treat from your hand directly into the mouth. If the treat falls down remove it immediately and feed another treat again from your hand into the mouth of the dog. That way the dog will also learn to only accept things from your hand and nothing from the ground.

After practising this for a while (you can practise basically the whole day also inside the house by dropping something from the kitchen counter while cooking for example. Only make sure you have your "weapon" ready and that you would be quick enough to remove the treat just in case...) you can go a step further and throw a treat. If the dog tries to run to the treat to get it, throw the discs on the ground. You will see that the dog will stop immediately if you have practised this already a bit. If the dog doesn't follow the treat walk the dog along the treat and if the dog doesn't show any interest reward with a treat from your hand into the mouth.

The next step will be that the dog doesn't even look at the treat on the ground anymore. You throw the treat if the dog looks at it the discs fall down.

By building this up slowly your dog won't pick up anything anymore which lays on the ground.
You only need to be very careful that you don't throw the discs at your dog but on the ground. If the treat is far away and the dog is going for it you can throw the discs as well but make sure that you don't hit your dog.

I have to say I was really desperate and pessimistic about this issue but this workshop (only 1 day by the way!) has cured Benny and I only had to take the discs with me on walks during the first 4 days and had to throw them maybe 3 times in total. After that he never picked anything up from the ground anymore and didn't eat any poop anymore.

Good luck!

[1xar0x2rcx0li]

Great post! Thanks for the info.

[Adina P]

Thanks for sharing that...very interesting!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Wow, that was effective and relatively painless.

[Shannon Querry]

This is fantastic information, thank you! I'm going to see what I can do here at home before she goes back on Tuesday.

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

If you want to try it make sure that you do some dry exercises before you start with the dog. You won't believe how fast they are in getting the treat. So have another person first trying to get the treat. Then you can practise also already grabbing the treat and at the same time letting the discs fall. The timing is a bit tricky in the beginning but if you practise a few times if another person you get better in it very quickly.
It is vital that the dog NEVER EVER will get the treat on the ground. So being fast in the beginning is everything. It might also help to use a second person when you start throwing treats a bit further away in the beginning. The dog will run faster than you :)

[Shannon Querry]

They do a pretty good job at cleaning up but they're outside in a 1 acre area that's fenced in and if they go behind something it's hard to see. I also think that she's probably "cleaning up" for them faster than they can get to it! I have seen her eat her own stool at home when she's tied out back when my husband and son our out there with there. I of course can never get their attention fast enough to get her to stop! She eats in the AM and PM and it's about an hour before she goes to daycare.

Thanks everyone for the information! I'm going to go back to homecooking for her for the time being to help her belly feel better and I didn't feed her tonight because she threw up again tonight after eating some grass. I swear I've never seen a dog with such a sensitive stomach before! LOL!

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

The sensitive stomach is definitely coming from eating poop. Benny constantly had throwing up issues and I can tell you it is a pain to remove thrown up poop! He never ate his own poop though.

[Lin D & Yogi]

My puppy did this from the first day. I read that yogurt would help and it did work for our puppy. The vet said it was ok. Also, noticed some tablets at the pet store for this. Good luck.