Eating Poo

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

I wonder if anyone has an idea for me.
Benny is not the first dog I own but he is the first one who keeps eating dog and duck poo he finds during our walks.
He was checked already at the vet clinic and he is not missing any key nutrients as his food is various and we also give him treads with extra nutrients.
As he is a smart boy he even tries to eat poo when he is on the leach. He is pretending then to just sniff around a bit and suddenly he graps that fast the poo that you almost can't react to hold him back.
He is now 7 months, I wonder if this will stop when he is not a puppy anymore.
Has anybody any ideas, suggestions, tips for me?

[Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran]

Unfortunately, I think this is a fairly common dog thing. When we moved to our house three years ago, Casey immediately found a pile of rabbit poo ( a new experience for him.) He ate the poo and then came in the house and promptly puked it up all over the living room carpeting. (Which was, of course, white.)

I'm happy to report that Casey doesn't do this anymore. Maybe he grew out of it? Not sure - just happy he did!

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

Oh you can't imagine how I know the problem with puking on white carpets.....We even had to remove to 2 carpets when Benny was a really small puppy because it was hopeless.
Since a couple of weeks we have again 2 carpets on our wooden floor but this time they are dark and so far no little accident has happened.
I hope it stays like that :)

[Danielle]

I was just watching the show It's Me or the Dog on Animal Planet the other day and the trainer was trying to help a couple get their dogs to stop eating their own poop from the yard. She taught the dogs the command "leave it" and that seemed to help. I don't know when that episode will be replayed, but I thought that it may help. Perhaps if Benny learns that command it may help deter him from eating the poop over time. Just a thought! I hope it helps!

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

Good idea, but we tried that already without any success.
He doesn't eat his own poop by the way only from other dogs.
We thought already that maybe he is eating poo from dominant other dogs to remove their marks as he started with his puberty now and sometimes has a really dominant behavior. He was neutered last week and we can see already some changes in his behavior. His tail is now more often at a slightly lower level than before and he seems to follow commands better.
Hopefully the eating of the poo will stop as well. It's not nice when he just did that and then you come back home and the first thing he does when removing his collar is giving you a wet doodlekiss.....

[Richard Crowe]

There are some food additives (Google for them) that are said to prevent dogs from feces eating.

Holly doesn't, thank gosh, eat her stuff nor do any of our present Maltese.

We have had some Maltese that did this and it was especially prevalent if we fed any liver based food (liver treats, etc.).

We don't feed canned food but, poop eating also seems prevalent when owners feed canned stuff. Adding some crushed pineapple will help prevent the poop eating in that case. But, it doesn't do any good when you feed your dog kibble. Our Maltese would just push the pineapple aside and eat the kibble.

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

Hi Richard,

thanks for your ideas, I will keep trying different things. Benny eats only kibble and add some fresh stuff to vary his food every time. Our vet gave us fishoil but it didn't seem to make a difference and Benny didn't really like. As he is not a good eater (except for poop lol) anyway we stopped using the oil. But I will try the pineapple as he likes fruit. At least he likes apples.

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

Hey Nancy,

garlic tablets don't work either, because he gets them for 2 months now and no change so far :(
I will have a look at www.kwet.com. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

Hi Nancy,

thanks for your input. Unfortunely I need to find another company because Kv ships the catalogues only within the US and as I live in Europe that's a problem :)
By the way there is no change in Benny's behavior. Usually he listens very good to the command "leave it" but when he has poop in his mouth nothing helps. He doesn't even want to open his mouth when I try to open it. He has developped some tricks now as well. When he is walking on the leach he is pretending to be interested in something on the ground next to the poop and then suddenly he graps the poop so fast that you almost can't react anymore. He knows exactly that he is not allowed to do it because you can see that from his behavior.
Now it got even worse with this winter weather. Obviously he loves poop icecream. All the poop is frozen and now it is even more interesting for him because he can chew it and lick it. I almost threw up when he did it for the first time because it makes ugly sounds. He now even started eating his own poop in the yard as long as its frozen. So we need to be careful now and watch him in the yard. In case he does something there we need to clean up immediately. Before we just cleaned up every second day in case he left something there.
I am getting more and more desperate. We tried food additions the vet recommended but that didn't help either.

[Adrianne Matzkin]

We take an outdoor off leash class at the Animal Rescue grounds. We were told that it is something most dogs do - for some reason goose and duck poop is a delicacy. Samantha is exceptional with the 'leave it' command - and it worked. When she left that bird poop alone, she got a treat. And it worked - for us.

[Zoe, Benny and Tyler]

Unfortunately it's not only duck and goose poop but dog poop seems to be interesting as well.....
Treats we have tried as well, but the poop seems to be more interesting than all of Benny's favourite treats.
I hope that we will find something that finally works.