Coprophagia - Stool Eating

Well, you might not know it by it's medical name but I'm sure you know it by the behavior it describes.

Have you ever seen your puppy or dog (or any dog for that matter) eat poop?

Then you have just witnessed coprophagia in action.

This behavior is certainly one that makes most pet owners simply wonder "why?".

As disgusting as it is to us, it is just as normal as can be to a dog.

There are many theories as to why dogs do this. Some dogs just enjoy doing this. Sometimes dogs do this due to an existing medical condition such as a thyroid problem or diabetes.

If your dog has no history of doing this and then just starts eating poop I would definitely suggest you get medical help asap to see what is going on from a health standpoint with your dog.

More often than not, dogs are just copying the behavior of their mothers while they were young. Puppies are curious and often copy their mother actions - eating feces is just one of these actions that they may learn from their mom.

Also, if left to grow up in a dirty cage or run or any area where poop is not cleaned quickly, a bored puppy may revert to poop eating just out of sheer boredom.

Early prevention is often the best thing to keep this behavior from becoming a habit. Prevent the puppy from eating poop by cleaning all fecal material quickly and often. It is much easier to prevent a habit from happening in the beginning than from retraining a dog to not do a bad habit after it has become ingrained in their behavior.

After all, in this case, if there's no poop to eat then there's no problem. Prevention is key.

Intestinal parasites can easily be transferred from the host animal to yours particularly in this case. It is very important to make sure that your dog should be on a very rigid worming schedule if he has the coprophagia habit.

Remember to scoop your poop and dispose of it appropriately and you'll cut down on the chances of your pet participating in this act.

Return from coprophagia to GSD puppy info