Yuck! So, what can we do about poop eating? The best strategy is to start from the very beginning with puppies and make sure they never learn this nasty habit.
How?
- Remove poop as soon as it appears.
- Don’t make a big fuss if the puppy does find some poop.
- Distract, redirect and reward the puppy for stopping what they’re doing and listening to you.
- Feed your dog the best quality food you possibly can. Avoid foods like Pedigree, Beneful, Hills, Royal Canin and Ol’ Roy because they are full of fillers and have low nutritional value which can cause the puppy to feel the need to eat their own poop.
- Feed your dog twice a day, rather than once, and give him plenty of things he can chew on like carrots, celery sticks, garbanzo beans or frozen peas in the Tricky Treat ball.
- Make sure he’s getting enough mental stimulation and exercise.
How to tackle the problem of the dog who has learned the habit and been doing it for a while:
- Keep him on a leash whenever he’s out to prevent him from practicing the unwanted behavior while you go through the training process.
- WHILE he’s pooping, feed him some delicious food and pick up his poop before he’s done eating delicious food. That way he gets rewarded for pooping and rewarded for not eating it.
- As training practice, take him on leash to where there is some poop and let him get close enough so he can smell it and see it but NOT eat it. He might be straining at the end of the leash. Just stand there and wait for him to give up and turn away and then reward the heck out of him with whatever floats his boat – i.e. if it’s food, make it something really delicious that he doesn’t usually get, or if he prefers, verbal praise or playing with toys - do whatever he wants most.
- Lots of repetitions of him getting rewarded for CHOOSING to look away, walk away, and eventually when he sees poop he’ll probably be looking for you to see if you’ll give him something yummy.
- Once you see the behavior is established you can start to go for random rewards. You must be unpredictable and generous or he’ll revert to the previous behavior.
Note:
If your dog suddenly starts eating poop you should get them checked by a veterinarian to make sure there isn’t a medical component to the behavior.There is anecdotal evidence that giving your dog fresh pineapple in their food will deter them from eating their own poop. Of course, it won’t stop them from eating other animals’ poop, though. That applies to all coprophagia products fed to the dog.
