My 8 month old weimaraner puppy eats and then rolls herself in dog poo (not her own) is this normal and if so how can i stop it

It's normal for dogs to want to roll in smelly things, but it's usually the poo of other species, cow poo, horse poo, often fox poo.  It is a bit unusual for a dog to want to role in other dogs' poo, yes.  And definitely unusual to eat it, although not unusual to want to eat cow, horse or fox poo.

What are you feeding her on?

Have you tried teaching her a Leave command?

If you do a search for 'Coprophagia' you'll find dogpoo-eating is very common! ;)

It is a very common _behavioural problem_, yes....

So, it's not 'normal' and I personally wouldn't accept it...

Thanks for all your comments, we have had her to training classes and generally is quite well behaved (if am 8 month old weimaraner can be). We feed her dry food Eukanuba and she generally clears her bowl. You say behavioural problems. What can cause this type of problem???

Hi - I'm going to cut and paste something I wrote below on this thread to new owner - it says:

One theory behind why dogs eat their own poo, is because there are nutrients in it.  Now, if the dog is being fed the right diet and the right amount of it, there shouldn't be any nutrients left in it, because the dog should have absorbed them all and all that should be left is waste matter.  What happens when dogs are fed diets too high in nutrients, or too much food, is that the nutrients remain in the waste matter and the dog can smell that the faeces are not digested properly and eats them to get those nutrients.

Personally, I wouldn't feed Eukanuba because I don't think it's a very good food - here is the ingredient list from the Large Breed Puppy food:

"Chicken (>20%), maize, wheat, fish meal, barley, sorghum, animal fat, dried beet pulp, dried whole egg, chicken digest, brewer's dried yeast, linseed, sodium chloride, DL-methionine, potassium chloride, glucosamine HCl, chondroitin sulphate, marigold extract."

Firstly, this food has only about 20% meat in it.  It has maize, wheat and barley in it, all of which are known to be indigestible to a lot of dogs, to be related to allergies and which is a heck of a lot of grain when combined.  It has 'animal fat', but it doesn't specify what animal this comes from - it could be any animal, but usually this refers to a combination of animal fats from different animals and it can vary depending on what is available to them at any time.  'Chicken digest' is basically a way of saying 'chicken by-products', which are the 50% of a chicken not used in human food.  'Sodium chloride' is salt - why is there added salt? 

I could go on but you might want to look at this link for further info: http://api4animals.org/79.htm

Imo the best dry foods are either Burns: www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk or James Wellbeloved: www.wellbeloved.co.uk

If you want to feed wet, the best wet food (imo) is Nature Diet: www.naturediet.net

So, the first thing I'd try, if I were you, is to change her diet and see if that helps.

She is not eating her own poo its another dogs, but after raeding some of the replies i have received it may well be another animals.

People have different opinions on this so I can only tell you what my own experience was.  My dog ate other dogs' poo as well.  It's quite common and normal.  Giving her pineapple was recommended and again the reasons for this working varies depending on who you ask.  It didn't work for mine and I think it might be most effective for dogs that eat their own because the pineapple makes their poo unpalletable to them.

I found by sheer coincidence that changing my dog's brand of food stopped her (although now and then she still does it I think).  There are people on here who can explain all about the nutritional contents but I can't.  All I know is that I tried 2 well known brands and she ate the poo but feeding her JWB sorted her out.  I thought it was down to digestion myself as JWB states it is easy to digest and I guessed that the cheaper brands were not and consequently she wasn't getting all she needed nutritionally from her food so picked up what she needed from the park. 

If you do a search on eating dog poo you might find the relevant threads

Chez, you're right, JWB is a good food.  www.wellbeloved.co.uk

It's a dry food too.

Nature Diet is a good, wet food: www.naturediet.net

changed my pup to naturediet and burns, she loves it but has now started eating her own poo. she has always tried to sniff out other dogs but never her own before. i keep hearing about this pineapple thing, my kids were having a smoothie one night, gave pup a bit, next day she had runny poo and started to eat it, that was the first time she did it. unsure what to do now, she absolutly loves the burns and naturediet and will have to stay on it til it has finished but unsure if i should change later. seems a shame as she obviously enjoys her new food so much.

Hi new owner - I wouldn't change her diet.  To be honest, some pups go through a stage like this and then grow out of it.  If it continues and becomes a long term thing, then think about solutions, but at the moment I'd just wait and see. 

About the smoothie and the runny poo:

One theory behind why dogs eat their own poo, is because there are nutrients in it.  Now, if the dog is being fed the right diet and the right amount of it, there shouldn't be any nutrients left in it, because the dog should have absorbed them all and all that should be left is waste matter.  What happens when dogs are fed diets too high in nutrients, or too much food, is that the nutrients remain in the waste matter and the dog can smell that the faeces are not digested properly and eats them to get those nutrients.

What I think might have happened with your pup and smoothie is that the smoothie upset her stomach, so she didn't digest that or the other food in her very well, and her poo contained not only nutrients but interesting ones (from the smoothie, which she doesn't usually have), so she ate it again.  Dogs are creatures of habit and once they've done something once, they're more likely to do it again, which could explain why it might have become a habit now.

The one thing you could try is cutting her meals back - this will slow down her digestion and her system will try hard to get all available nutrients out of food before it is passed out the other end.  Hopefully the end result will then not be so appetising to her!

ps Nature Diet and Burns are both excellent foods and it would be a shame to take her off them...

All my dogs are fed exactly the same. One eats poo, has done since I had her (11 yrs ago) the others don't.  The odd one (OK, they're all odd :D ) will go through a phase of rolling when they are very small, but soon grow out of that. Hopefully, yours will grow out of it too.

Thanks Anwen. What type of dogs do you have???

I have two dogs, both fed on the same food (James Wellbeloved) and yet one 'tries' to eat poo (not her own). They are both physically fit, not over or under weight and have generally a good life style.  Another friend of mine has her dog eating its own poo!
I have trained her out of it by saying 'no' and using some distraction techniques, which has seemed to work!  I also keep a close eye on her when she goes for a run.  As soon as I see her stop I'm there! Needless to say this is keeping me fit! Just!

Thanks Yolanda, I must admit from reading these replies i have found a lot of different opinions from various sources and willtake them all on board. (Some more than others).This is the first time i have used this means of information from people who have gone through similar, if not identicle situation as my own, with quite possibly a lot more experience than i possess.

After reading through all the info i will try a couple of options because they seem more plausable than others and also sound to come from people who have gone through a similar experiance. (Will let you know at a later date which options i used, trying not to offend)

Would like to speak to other people whom Weimaraner's own (because we don't own them LOL)

Thanks Yolanda