Hi All,

Nando (6 month old GSD) has developed a habit of eating his own poo. If we let him out into the back to toilet he will eat it or at least attempt to lick it if he isn't supervised. It is a vicious circle as I assume rushing to grab it makes him think he has to 'get there first' almost, but if we don't get it quick-ish, he will eat it. I have started calling him in as soon as he's toileted, so that I can go outside and clean it up myself.

The problem arises that when he barks in the morning to be let out to toilet (About 6am) I go and let him out, then I myself will go and make a quick drink of water and go upstairs to the loo myself whilst he's outside (If I stay and watch him, he would rather try to get me to play and would completely forget he even needs the loo),  before putting him back in his crate so I can go back to bed for another half hour or so.

I'm hoping this makes sense as I explain it, but I'm wondering if the best way to try and solve this would be to use the tablets available to solve this problem, or is it something I should change in my routine?

Is eating his own droppings likely to do any harm to his health? It is the most disgusting habit ever!

Josh

Best thing to do is to break the habit before it forms at his age - pretty much what you're doing now, although if you could hold it yourself so you can supervise the first toilet break of the day you'll stand the best chance.  Or, if he can hold it a few moments longer so you can go!

You've rightly got the idea that you don't want to make a big deal of it - and of course punishment is a huge no-no, he'd just start waiting til your back was turned.  Distract then reward when he's come away, and if you aren't already, get about training a good 'leave' - or even a poo-specific cue to not eat it (I used 'no eating!' as my cue for Soli when I saw her about to do it).

Tablets can be hit and miss - never made a jot of difference to Soli, nothing did except training that cue and cleaning up regularly.  They do work brilliantly for some dogs though.  But, she'd already formed an almost unbreakable habit of it by the time I got her at 5yrs - she did improve but I had to manage it for the nearly 5 years I had her.  So if you can stop him now, it'll be best for the long run!  It can be done - Opi did it for a while at about Nando's age, I just made sure I cleared it up as soon as she did it without fuss, and it stopped as quickly as it began.  Just some random puppy phase for her I think.

Another possibility if it's only his that he's eating is to add pineapple to his food - fresh works best apparently, something to do with taste.

Health-wise it's unlikely to do harm - Soli did it all her 10 years, my lab does it now out of hunger (on a diet) and my oldie does it for some unknown reason, probably nutritional and it has eased off now I've changed their food.

That's another angle - some foods make some dogs do it, so might be worth looking at that as well.

He is on Beta Pup and NatureDiet. I did think that perhaps the problem was that his droppings smell a bit like the NatureDiet (disgusting, I know) and maybe it is tempting him to eat it?

The problem of a morning is that he thinks it's playtime if I stand around waiting to catch up/call him back. I may just have to break his habit by standing and ignoring him until he does his business and then distracting him and bringing him back into the house whilst I clean up. It is really disgusting and the only way we can get him to stop stinking afterwards is to feed him a piece of carrot or apple to clean his teeth.

It really is a disgusting habit, but he never tries it with other droppings, in the park etc, only his own. I considered it was hunger but he always toilets straight after he has eaten so he definitely isn't hungry because of it.

It's such a hard problem to tackle but I think maybe keeping a diary might help too so I can see if there's any habits developing. It has been happening for a month or two now, but only recently has it happened more and more frequently.

Josh

Take him into the garden on a lead, use a command word as he's 'going' and move him away as soon as he's finished.  Reward.  If you use a lead and a command word he'll soon learn that this isn't play time.

Do not let him out on his own.  It's not hunger, and I've never found anything to be effective other than the advice that young dogs tend to grow out of it with some additional training.

A flexi lead is a handy option for this purpose.  If he's a bit shy, or prefers to go into the bushes/undergrowth (like one of mine) then a flexi means he can wander away from you a bit (even stand inside the back door) but you still remain in control.  If you're not using it for general walking then you shouldn't have any of the possible disadvantages of these types of leads - just the advantages :)

One final thought - do check you aren't feeding too much.  Over eaters will pass a lot of still nutritious waste which many dogs would consider ideal for recycling!  Dogs eh?  Love 'em :)

I'm not too sure about the smell side of things.  Right at the back of my garden I keep a grass-only compost heap - a few days after I cut the grass, it's composted down to just the right state that the dogs absolutely love it, and go eating it (I guess it's like horse poop at this point...?).  It comes out just how it goes in (and gives me a heart attack because it goes in and comes out black :-o), smells the same and yet none of my coprophagics have ever even looked at that poo - they only touch the 'normal' stuff.

The suggestion of pineapple is correct, it makes the poo unappealing in scent and taste.  The problem that I had is that the old boy whose poo the pup was eating, developed a dislike of pineapple tho he loved it at first.  The pup eventually grew out of it round about 12 months, perhaps partly in conjunction with training (the 'leave' command and 'no' every time he went to sniff it as also already suggested).  Agree, proper disgusting habit esp if you have one that likes to lick you!!

> Agree, proper disgusting habit esp if you have one that likes to lick you!!

Oh that is the worst one.  Soli wasn't so bad but Saffi is a BIG licker (she spent half an hour at bedtime last night cleaning my arms till she feel asleep), so I'm forever checking her breath before she gets too close :-P

heh, never mind smelling their breath, it's "brown-mouth syndrome" that's the biggest giveaway - as in when pup grabs white T-shirt from the washing basket, and when you get it back off him it's acquired some patchy brown tie-dye - ugh yuk!!  It's almost enough to make you sympathise with people who don't like dogs! (not quite tho!)

Oh now that is grim!  Saffi's sneaky about it, considering she's an extremely clumsy, messy yellow lab she never leaves any evidence for me to see, just the smell!

hi Josh, my youngest pup went through this phase briefly, not so much eating it but tending to fetch it...ewww...I think he liked my son roaring "that puppy ate WHAT!!!!!!" and running off in terror that the pup would lick him--great game! I broke the habit by building up a very stern no and waving a high value treat at him. He soon twigged it wasn't all that much fun.

We had a puppy years ago who did it, we tried the tablets, pineapple chunks and all of the other "remedies", none of them worked, we just got there quick and removed it before he had the chance, puppy grew out of it naturally.

Just to respond to Nikita: dogs can die from eating grass cuttings. My friend's Golden did, so I would advise not letting your dogs eat the compost.

I used to give him half an apple (removed pips first) as a way of cleaning up his mouth, worked quite well and I repelled all licks till he'd finished crunching it!

> Take him into the garden on a lead, use a command word as he's 'going' and move him away as soon as he's finished.

Usefull command :-D
I use "step, step", to get Buster to take a couple of steps forward when he's pooped. This means that when we're on a walk, if I haven't had chance to catch it in poop-bag, he'll step away so when he 'scrats' he doesn't kick it at me while I'm bending down to grab it!

>he'll step away so when he 'scrats' he doesn't kick it at me while I'm bending down to grab it!

Good gracious!  I imagine if you didn't move fast enough, with the size of Buster, it would be like an exocet missile hitting you!

ROFL!

Dont worry Josh the probelm I have is with cats poo in the garden ( I have cats too) its kind of buried but not enough and anyware around the bushes of which there are a few and when out walking eating or roling in fox badger actually anything the takes her fancy.

> I imagine if you didn't move fast enough, with the size of Buster, it would be like an exocet missile hitting you

LOL, Yes. The speed at which he can launch things with his back feet while scratting is quite impressive :-D

Sorry for getting off topic here, I'll get back to the point.

Apart from picking up poops before pup can get to them, working on a leave it comand should help. Our oldie introduced Buster to the delights of cat-poop, a good leave-it command had that nipped in the bud quickly (never managed to get oldie out of the habbit, but it's easier when working with a pup, they haven't had chance to get the habbit ingrained).