From a human perspective, “dogs eating poop” is an extremely unhygienic and disgusting behavior. When many pet owners encounter this situation, they either scream, scold, or even hit their dogs. Some people even give away or abandon their dogs because of this. But from a dog’s perspective, eating poop may actually be a normal behavior.
Generally speaking, the reasons for a dog’s poop-eating behavior can be roughly divided into three categories: animal instinct, behavioral responses, and physiological reactions.
Animal Instinct
In terms of animal instinct, newborn puppies cannot urinate or defecate on their own. They rely on their mother to lick them to stimulate elimination while ingesting the waste. This not only keeps the environment clean but also prevents the smell from leaking, which avoids attracting other predators and protects their safety. Therefore, when a dog feels threatened, it will often eat its own poop to increase a sense of security.
Behavioral Responses
In terms of behavioral responses, incorrect training by pet owners can easily lead to wrong reactions in dogs. This is most common when a dog defecates randomly: if the owner scolds or punishes it excessively, the dog will form a wrong perception that “being seen by the owner after defecating will result in punishment.” As a result, it will eat its poop immediately after defecating.
Some pet owners are eager to clean up the poop right after the dog defecates for hygiene reasons. However, their hasty movements make the dog mistakenly think that the owner is trying to snatch its “treasure” or that this is a game. This causes the dog to eat the poop first to compete with the owner for it.
Some dogs do this to get their owner’s attention, while others eat poop simply because they are too bored. At times like these, owners need to reflect on themselves: are they paying too little attention to their dogs?
Physiological Reactions
If a dog’s nutrition is unbalanced, leading to a lack of trace elements, it may develop pica. Dogs with pica will not only eat poop but may also gnaw on soil, wall skin, and other things. In this case, you should add some trace elements to the dog’s food to correct the pica.
Some dogs have problems with their digestive and absorption functions, so their poop contains a lot of nutrients such as protein and carbohydrates. Dogs with a keen sense of smell will regard their poop as food and eat it.
In addition, some pet owners feed their dogs only once a day or restrict their food intake based on the advice of dog breeders or others. When a dog is hungry and cannot find food, it may eat its own poop to satisfy its hunger.
Countermeasures
We believe that many owners are very troubled by their dogs eating poop. Here, we provide some measures that we hope will be helpful to you:
- Take your dog to the hospital for a check-up by a veterinarian to see if it has parasites. If it does, deworm the dog according to the type of parasites detected. It is best to check several times to avoid misjudgment due to just missing the parasite’s ovulation window period.
- Keep probiotics at home and give them to your dog regularly and continuously.
- Feed your dog dog food from a reputable brand. Larger manufacturers have reliable nutrient ratios. It is best not to give your dog other human food or snacks to ensure that it can get correct and balanced nutrition.
- Do not harshly discipline or hit your dog at the place where it defecates or while it is defecating, so as to avoid it being afraid of the poop being seen and eating it.
- Give your dog sufficient playtime every day. You can even consider getting another puppy to accompany it, so that it will not be so bored that it has to eat poop.
- If you find that your dog has the habit of eating poop, you can supplement it with some trace elements to get rid of the pica.
- This is the most important and troublesome task. After the dog defecates, first move the dog to another place, then clean up and deodorize the poop thoroughly. Spend more time playing with it when you have time to consume its energy and divert its attention.
There are many reasons for the habit of eating poop, and there is no guarantee that any single method will work. You need to keep trying different methods to find the one that suits your own dog. This may be a long process, so pet parents need to be patient!