The pup LOVES the deer and rabbit poo. The first thing he does when we go outside is to search for it. I have a pretty good size yard, and I've removed as much as possible, but he finds every little piece he can get his teeth on.

Any ideas for making him stop eating it? He won't go near his own, so that's not a problem. Just poo from other animals.

Have you tried spiking it with hot sauce, worked for me. Just a thought!

Ah, good idea. That's gonna require a lot of hot sauce though... maybe I shouldn't have dumped the spent grain from my brewery in the back yard to attract the deer last fall.

Perhaps not, don't worry if the neighbours look at you funny as you walk around the yard hunched over scouring for poop with a bottle of Franks Red hot in hand. We used to watch from the window and come out shooting with a super soaker.

At the dogs, not the neighbours, just clarifying.

 Quote: john stopps

The pup LOVES the deer and rabbit poo. The first thing he does when we go outside is to search for it. I have a pretty good size yard, and I've removed as much as possible, but he finds every little piece he can get his teeth on.

Any ideas for making him stop eating it? He won't go near his own, so that's not a problem. Just poo from other animals.

My dog LOVED poo as a pup. Deer, rabbit, elk, moose and so on. Part of my training goals was to let this pup range and walk off leash for the work we were going to do so you can see I ran into a real dilema.

Things that worked....

Long line and a correction, however the pup very quickly became "line wise".

Much better was teaching "leave it" (meaning stop what you are doing and come to me...get rewarded with treat) Start this training inside so it is well understood before you expect results with distractions in the wide world.

For a while I walked the same route. I memorized the poo piles (of course there would be new ones too). I worked on my timing. As soon as the dog showed intrerst in the poo I would give my command and the dog would come to me instead.

I thought I would have a poo hound forever, but he outgrew it and is not interested in poo now, not even horse poo is interesting anymore.

If you just want the dog to have some free time outside, try to do that were there is no poo at all. If you are in your yard, you are just going to have to find out how you can be more interesting that that poop!

As gross as you think it is-he is getting valuable nutrients from the digested vegetable matter.
If you are worried about worms just deworm periodically.

 Quote:

As gross as you think it is-he is getting valuable nutrients from the digested vegetable matter.
If you are worried about worms just deworm periodically.

Deer poop is basically the only vegetable my dogs get and they love it. I specifically asked the vet about worms and he said not from deer poop. I do live in the NW, so checking for regional differences would be good.

Shannon

John,

I suppose one could do adverse trainning on deer and rabbit droppings, but why?
It's easy enough for teach a 'leave it' command for when you're around, as Jennifer has mentioned, however if your going to leave the dog to it's own devices....he's going to roll in and eat anything he wants to. As long as it doesn't make him sick, why worry about it?

Randy

I read that dogs can get giardia from deer poo. Is that true? If so, I definitely don't want him eating it.