F.A.Q Puppies & Dogs

I have a six-month-old Golden Labrador that has the horrible habit of eating his own poo! What causes this and what can I do about it?

Copraphagia (ingestion of faeces) is rarely a sign of any dietary insufficiency but it is worthwhile thinking about whether your dog is getting a well-balanced diet. In addition, dogs that have a lack of some digestion enzymes or possibly an intestinal disease can behave like this, so it is worthwhile discussing this with the vet that looks after your dog.

However, coprophagia can also be associated with

• Attention seeking behaviour
• Lack of toys etc so that the dog becomes bored
• Hunger
• Seeing the mother cleaning up a soiled environment, as bitches eat the faeces of their puppies to maintain a clean nest

Coprophagia is fairly common in dogs, and is a normal phenomenon in wild dogs, which normally eat the faeces of herbivores.

There are several ways to try and stop this. 

• You can give the dog a highly digestible, energy dense, low residue diet. Make sure, however, that the diet is suitable for your dog
• In some cases, a higher fibre content has proved more effective
• Increasing activity can decrease any boredom that can be linked to coprophagia. Toys such as activity feeding and food-finding toys are best
• It can help to increase the number of meals
• Train your dog to respond to the ‘leave’ command so that you can stop your dog investigating the faeces when you are supervising him
• Only allowing lead exercise

 You can also consider ways to discourage your dog from investigating the faeces, such as

• Check with your vet whether the technique of ‘ambushing’ faeces would be helpful.   This involves putting finely ground white or cayenne pepper on the faeces that causes sneezing when the dog breathes in. Bring your dog into contact with ‘ambushed’ faeces and call out ‘leave’ and if your dog persists in investigating ‘ambushed’ faeces, he will sneeze. This exercise will need to be repeated several times a day for several weeks. You need to be consistent and control the environment that the dog is in by ‘ambushing’ all of the faeces that your dog will investigate. If you do not, the dog will find faeces that will not have been ‘ambushed’ and his behaviour will become even more active in seeking them out.
• Adding pineapple juice or courgettes to the diet is supposed to make the faeces less palatable, again take care not to upset your dog’s intestines
• Some proprietary foods have additives that have the same effect

However, the most effective way is clearing away any faeces quickly and promptly so that the dog has no chance to eat them!