by Brenda Nelson

Created on: November 04, 2009

The correct term for eating poop is coprophagia and while it does occur very rarely in humans, this article is about the the causes and treatments for this problem when it occurs in dogs.

-Causes-

There are many suspected causes and if the problem exists in your dog, there may be more than one cause. It is more common in dogs than in cats, and anyone who owns both will note that cats are much more fussy eaters, often smelling things first, where a dog simply wolfs things down.

The feces of any omnivore, or carnivore, contain some undigested protein, this is very attractive to a dog, who is essentially a scavenger, so eating something they find lying around that smells yummy, isn't terribly unusual.

Next we must remember dogs are protective of their den area, leaving something like that lying around might attract other predators, so they gobble it up as a primitive behavior. Mother dogs eat the feces of their puppies as a way of keeping the den clean and odors down. In contrast urine is used to tell other dogs to stay away, as urine is not a possible food source.

Also, in the wild, mother dogs who have eaten, return to the den, and vomit up the food for the pups to eat. Feces, in many ways are similar to regurgitated food, especially when fresh and warm.

Sometimes the behavior is learned as a pup, from watching mom.

Sometimes the behavior forms as a puppy, particularly if living in a situation that often lacks attention, such as in puppy mill pups, ones that are sold through the Pet Store system.

Poor house training often contributes to the problem. When a person house trains a pup correctly, they should go outside with the pup and immediately offer it a soft treat reward for defecating outside. The owner then uses this time to clean up the mess, and the puppy develops the behavior of looking to the owner for a reward rather than turning around to see what came out of it.

Dogs who are disciplined for messing indoors, by having their face put in it might resort to eating their feces as a way to avoid a punishment, or because they think this is what their owner wants them to do.

Similarly sometimes dogs get attention for this behavior, thus reinforcing it. This is because dogs love attention and often have a hard time distinguishing between good attention and bad. This would be especially true of a dog who gets very little attention on a normal basis and may only get attention when it does something we would consider bad.

Dogs who are stressed often resort to

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