caught my dog the other day eating her own poo whys this?

can someone answer me

If you use the search facility you will find that when this subject has come up in the past, many, many theories are thrown about including the feeding of every food or diet that you could name so, truthfully, I think the answer is nobody knows expecially in the case of any individual dog :).
I think the best solution, though, is to be around when your dog poos and remove it as soon as possible many dogs seem to break the habit after a while so there is hope :)

How old is your dog ?

Daisy

shes 9 months

It's very common in young dogs :) As Isabel says, just try to clean it up as soon as possible so that she doesn't get the opportunity :)

Daisy

Hi Ellex,
I have heard some theories on this, and the one theory that makes the most sense to me is a possible diet lacking in sufficient protein.  Poop has protein, and the dogs diet lacking in protein may be simply trying to get more.  Dogs will also clean out the kitty litter box.  Cat food is typically higher in protein than dog food and the dog can smell the proteins in the cat poop.  When a say "sufficient" protein, I am referring to diets where the animal source proteins (poultry, meat and fish), is higher in percentage than gluten source proteins (veggies and grains).  If you are feeding a commercial dry food, it is likely the second or third ingredients are actually higher in protein than the #1 one ingredient.  The reason for this is moisture content in the #1 ingredient (75% of the moisture) is legally to be constituted as a solid.  Therefore, moisture being nothing more than water does not contain protein.  That is why one must be careful in analyzing the ingredients to determine whether or not your feed is actually delivering what the dogs body really needs, diets rich in animal source proteins.

hi Ellex

I don't know much about what's in what commercial food but my dog used to eat other dogs' poo and this stopped when I changed her brand of food.  It was quite by accident that I stumbled across the connection and tried using yet another brand (pedigree chum) as a test and she reverted back to eating other poo.  She is now only has JBW and this behaviour as all but stopped except for very rare occasions - rare as in can count on one hand inthe past year.

As others have said, there are many reasons possible; sometimes it can be due to the way a dog was housetrained, where it would consume the evidence if the owner showed displeasure. I believe pineapple in the food is meant to help.

Lindsay
x

Hi, you seem to be having rather a lot of problems with your weimaraner bitch, with poop eating, cleaning up, calming her down and barking.

Do you think you might benefit from a visit from an experienced owner who may be able to help you?

If you would like to get in touch with someone who lives in your area who may be of assistance, please pm me.

regards

Ellex - what are you feeding your dog?

no i dont need anyone to come in as i have had weims for 15 year she just very different from my other ones thats all:-)

Puppies will do this for several reasons - once you know what the reason is, you can work to stop it, but remember it is perfectly 'normal' behaviour for a dog......

1) Inapropriate toilet training - punishing a dog when you find a motion will result in the dog reasoning that if there is no faeces on the floor, you can't punish them, and this is the only way they have of removing the evidence.

2) Learnt from the dam. Puppies who were not raised with access to two different substrates will continue to soil the bed area - the dam will remove the soiling, and this become a habit for the puppies - they copy the good and the bad.

3) Enzyme deficieny, often cured by adding a small amount of pineapple to the diet.

4) Bacterial overgrowth - most common in puppies who eat other dogs faeces as they are naturally driven to add the good bacteria from other dogs and even other animals guts that they are lacking. Needs vet treatment with long term strong antibiotics to restore the balance.

5) Most common - inappropriate diet - food it too rich or contains indigestible parts - such as a high grain content. This is why dogs often eat 'cat litter tray crunchies'.......

HTH