4/18/2023 0 Comments Dog pica backyard![]() There are even documented cases, albeit not common, of pets absorbing certain undigested medications from consuming poop. Consumption can increase their risks of intestinal parasite infection as well. When eating poop, your dog has an increased risk for certain diseases, such as E.coli, Salmonella, giardia, or parvovirus. While consuming poop isn’t a major medical issue, what that poo contains can be. If a dog is bored, they may seek out things to indulge in, including finding and eating feces in the yard or taking on the challenge of accessing the cat's litter box for a snack. They may start repeating this behavior to get your attention and can even see it as a fun game to play when you're around. Attention Seeking or Boredomĭogs learn quickly that eating poop is a surefire way of getting your attention, as when we see it happen, we tend to immediately respond by shouting and running after them. This can happen with dogs who spent a lot of time in confinement without a separate potty area, such as in puppy mills or an overcrowded shelter. In some cases, a dog may associate poop with food because their eating area was located too close to their potty area during critical development phases. This is related to the prior point about dogs liking the taste of feces. And if your dog is eating other dog or cat feces, to them, it's just another protein source! If they prefer horse or rabbit poop, perhaps they like the taste of digested plants. While we may automatically wrinkle our noses at the idea that our dogs just find poop tasty, it just may be that they like the taste. This is completely normal and expected behavior and is believed to happen due to their desire to keep the den area clean and protect against predators (who may smell the poop and therefore find the den location). When raising a litter of puppies, for the first few weeks after birth, a mother dog will lick the puppies' rears to stimulate bowel movements and then eat the puppies' feces. Dogs who are taking steroidal treatments, such as prednisone, often have a larger appetite and may begin to eat poop. HungerĮating stool may be a sign that a dog is simply hungry and seeking more calories. This may be separation anxiety or isolation distress, or a dog who is seeking to avoid punishment during potty training (hiding the evidence!). Stool eating may be a symptom of underlying anxiety or stress in a dog. Intestinal parasites like roundworms, hookworms, or whipworms, "steal" nutrients from your dog's diet, which can cause inflammation and malabsorption. Canine cognitive dysfunction ("doggie dementia") can also contribute to this behavior. Diseases that can lead to pica (eating inappropriate things), such as liver disease and anemia, can result in coprophagia. If a dog suddenly begins to eat feces, it may be a sign of health conditions that cause increased appetite, such as diabetes, Cushing's disease, hypothyroidism, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, or any gastrointestinal disease that causes malabsorption. Nutritional deficiencies are not common for dogs fed commercial diets, and are instead more common in dogs fed raw or homemade diets. If your veterinarian suspects deficiencies, they will run specific tests not included in a usual wellness blood panel. One study found that dogs whose diets were deficient in thiamine (vitamin B1) developed coprophagia. Reasons Dogs Eat Poop Nutritional DeficienciesĪ dog may eat poop because they are missing important nutrients in their own diet or they are not properly absorbing certain nutrients in their food during digestion (called malabsorption). In my quest to solve this poop-eating problem for my own dog, I've learned quite a lot from talking with my veterinarian about why dogs do this and what actually works to stop it. And it is something you'll want to stop, as eating poop can indicate health issues and has health risks considering that our dogs put their mouths on lots of things in our homes (including licking us). ![]() Poop eating is most often seen in puppies, but can become a lifelong issue if not addressed. They may eat their own poop or another animal's poop, such as the cat's "kitty rocha" from the litterbox or rabbit droppings in the yard. When a dog eats feces, it's called coprophagia. And when it comes to wildlife poo, he would rather roll in rabbit poop than eat it. ![]() ![]() Luckily, he won't eat his own or other dogs' poop we see on walks. My younger dog has a penchant for snacking on only my older dog's poop. But the one thing that still does and always will is poop-eating! And there's nothing worse than cleaning up dog poo-vomit. After years of working with animals, not much can gross me out. ![]()
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