Benjamin -

Curious to know how you link house training to feces consumption?

Do you mean that you saw dogs that ate their poo also had house training issues or do you mean that poor house training is the cause for dogs eating their feces?

Ok. So you think that house breaking and a dog that actually eats their feces go hand and hand. Let me ask you this... How about dogs that understand 100% that they are suppose to go outside. However if an accident does happen they eat their feces.... However dont eat it anywhere else. Do you actually think this goes back to poor house training???? The answer to that is no. It is actually a dog that is cleaning up after him/herself.

I disagree with your statement. Maybe I read the question wrong. However I am assuming here that the dog is house broke and eats the feces in the yard when he is out, after all he is a year and a half. Sometimes Dog A will eat dog B's feces, not C nor D nor E. Why is this??? Normally undigested proteins, that to the dog smell pretty darn tasty! So back to my statement. LET THE FECES CORRECT HIM And if you really need to know how to crate or kennel train a dog I would be happy to write you a lengthy email

P.S. Did you know that not all dogs are trained the same. That training can vary from dog to dog????? To many trainers get into the "this is the way its done" mode.

Thank you Jennifer

 Quote: dee dillinger

i have a 18 month old male and since he was a baby he has eaten his poop we change food he's good for a while then it's back to "snacking" on it i have been feeding wellness core before that it was innova he does get people food and some can if anybody has any ideals please let me know oh he only eats his and not my corgi's poop

My dog had the same problem when he was a pup of several months. One theory I read was the behavior was due to the feces being full of undigested food. Perhaps enzymes (they come in powdered form, perhaps other forms as well) might help, might not.

Another method I read about was adding canned pumpkin (not pie filling) to the dog's food and the resulting taste in the poo was not pleasant to the dog. I tried this and it did help - the times I didn't add pumpkin, sure enough he would eat the poo. However, it was just a temporary fix, but good enough at the time.

Cleaning up immediately worked in the beginning BUT the dog rebelled at that by instantly turning around to eat after eliminating. "No" and "phooey" didn't work, then slowly began to work.

He's grown out of it about a year ago (?) (he's now 20 mos old). He turns to look, sometimes sniff, then trots away. My previous GSD used to RUN away

Try the pumpkin even if you try another method, in addition to it.

Try switching foods for a food that he may digest better as well. I feed raw meats and bones.

In my personal experience, about 9 out of 10 times when a dog is eating poop he was house broken in an inefficient out dated method involving punishment of some kind. Once the dog is finally house broken it carries with it a host of bathroom (how else to put it?) related behavior issues. If this is not the case here then fine but when i talk to customers I can almost finish their sentences when this is an issue.

I disagree with Benjamin. I had a rescued dog who had a litter of pups (4). I had the pups for a long time, the first one finally got adopted at 15 weeks. 3 of the 4 pups are poop eaters and I did not housebreak these pups. They spent a lot of time outside and when they were inside they had a wee wee pad they used on their own. They started eating poop at about 6-7 weeks of age. They saw their mother cleaning up after them and that's how it started. The mother dog only ate the puppies poop.

My other 2 adult dogs occasionally eat poop too. Neither was housebroken when I got them (they had been outside dogs) and were never punished (each of my adults only peed in the house once, I simply said "no, outside" and that was it.)

I kept a puppy from that litter and he is absolutely obsessed with poop. He has been on lead since 4 months of age and I cannot even play with him in the yard because he will ignore me and all toys and spend the entire time looking for poop to eat. he usually finds some too since I have 3 other dogs who use the yard and we keep getting snow. even though he is on leash, all my corrections have done is teach him to eat faster. He will also eat it right after it comes out. He is not underweight, he is actually a little chunky. I am on the verge of muzzling him since all the poop is making him sick.

So no it is not housebreaking issues, it is a common problem, and I hope you find a solution!

I have heard using 2 tablespoons of pineapple juice given to each dog on their food works, as well as Forbid. I haven't tried them yet.

Ben,

I think you're applying human psych to dogs. Sure, there are plenty of dogs out there that were housetrained in an ineffective or detrimental way.

Sure there are many dogs out there that eat their poop.

Does one prove the other? Not to me.

I have two dogs raised with exactly the same method of crating and tethering, frequent trips outside, praising good behavior and ignoring mistakes if they were made because I understood that was a handler error.

One liked to eat poop as a pup, one never ever did. If you want to get technical about it, the Corgi ate the poop when he was on kibble. The GSD was on a partial meat diet from weaning. Was it the kibble that made the Corgi eat poop, or the fact that he was a puppy at the time he was on kibble? I know raw fed dogs that eat poop, too.

The truth of the matter is no one knows FOR SURE why a dog eats poop, which leads me to believe that there are probably multiple reasons. Sometimes adding something to a dog's food helps, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes increasing various nutritional levels in their food or changing the food's source helps. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes changing nothing works too, as the pup gets older. Some dogs want to do it way past the puppy stage.

The one thing that ALWAYS works is going out with your dog and cleaning up after him so he can't get to it. Hopefully the owner will stumble upon whatever works to change this habit for their particular dog eventually, but I really don't think it has anything do do with how a dog is housebroken.

A dog that's afraid to poop *anywhere* would be a bigger sign of a dog that had abusive or scary tactics employed. But a dog that calmly and happily eats their poop doesn't indicate that to me.

First off I'm not sure what Angela disagrees with. I never said all dogs or even most dogs, I said most dogs in my experience. Perhaps I have gotten a weird sample but it seems the natural place to start is eliminating this as a factor.

And Amber I assure you I'm not applying human psych. Once again this is part of my personal experience. The idea that Nicolas proposes that the dog does it to "clean up" would be applying human psych to dogs.

The only reason I even got involved was Nicolas's original suggestion. The idea of putting rat traps in your dog's feces is ridiculous to me when there are so many other options that involve physically harming the dog. Pumpkin, pineapple juice, deter, even bitter apple, vinegar, or tobasco on the feces.

Also Nicolas i would love to hear how you potty/crate train dogs, I always like to hear how other people do things.

 Quote: benjamin colbert

And Amber I assure you I'm not applying human psych. Once again this is part of my personal experience. The idea that Nicolas proposes that the dog does it to "clean up" would be applying human psych to dogs.

Well, in certain instances I think the "clean up" theory holds water. For example, a bitch eating her pup's poop in their "den" would make sense as an instinctual action.

But I agree with you that I think the rat traps are overkill. I think there are other, less traumatic and less risky ways of handling this.

One wonders if this is where the phrase "s###-eating grin" came from........
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