Why my dog is eating poop?

Dogs can eat poop (coprophagy), for an attention-getting behavior from the owner. Anxiety, stress, frustration, and boredom can be another cause. Also, a dog may eat poop to imitate the owner picking up feces. It can also be something is missing in their diet. Rule out a medical cause for poop eating with a checkup from a veterinarian.

I just sat an 8 month old puppy who had this habit. Her parents were able to find some medicated treats at a specialty dog store that she took as a medicine 1-2x day. The treats are supposed to make eating the poop taste bad to the dog. Good luck! Some people say they grow out of it.

Dogs sometimes eat poop out of boredom, for attention, to avoid punishment, or due to health issues. However, stool eating, also known as coprophagy, is actually quite normal behavior for a puppy. ... She does this both to keep the “den” clean and to protect the puppies from predators that might be drawn by the scent.

We have this problem too, I've tried the hot sauce ( on the poop) and she thought it was even yummier. papaya pills ( read it somewhere) and it didn't work. I just have to go out with her everytime and pick it up as soon as she's done. Doing this when she was a puppy stopped it for months, but after we boarded her at 11 months it started again so I'm assuming they did not pick up her poop in a timely manner, never went there again. Other things I've heard are meat tenderizer with papain on their food, it's hard to find, most meat tenderizers have another ingredient plus I have no idea if this is good for your dog. Plus there are edibles you can buy like Solid Gold SEP, ONP and Eliminate Potty Mouth, someone else mentioned Forbid. The reviews are spotty on all of them so I haven't tried any of them. Luckily they say coprophagy is not bad for your dog like it would be for humans, it's just gross for us.

There's a great episode of Victoria Stilwell's show ITS ME OR THE DOG where she helps a family that has five pugs that won't stop eating each other's poop. It's available to stream on Amazon prime.

When we first got our Sheltie puppy we kept her in the house and she used "potty pads". If we didn't pick up the poop right away (or we were not home) she would eat it. Once we trained her to potty outside (in the grass) the eating stopped. I think she ate the poop that was in the house because she wanted to keep the area she lived in clean.

I have a poo eatting bandit in my house. He was a rescue off the streets & although still working on potty training he uses outdoors majority of the time. (Jack Russell/ Pug mix) If he does go poo indoors, hes smart enough to know that hes not supposed to & tries to hide evidence. Tis the season of pumpkin. I bought a few cans & would spoon feed a couple of tablespoons at each meal. It seemed to deter him from wanting to eat his own. I guess the pumpkin tastes good but makes the poo taste like.. well crap!

I found (and read/heard) that this behavior could be caused by the food consumed by the “pooper”. Some cheap foods are not fully digested and thus come out with the poo.

We found that switching to a higher quality dog food stopped this behavior. Our breeder recommended Pro Plan. After switching to this we also found the dogs had smaller firmer poops which was a benefit when accidents happened, they were much easier and cleaner to pick up.

Ask your vet if you haven't done that yet, this should always be the first suggestion especially since its not just dog poo but animal doo, you never know what's in that stuff!

If it doesn't persist past a few weeks I'd say that the dog may have just had a bug and was seeking something to make it feel better. If it persists then go see your vet. Its often a food or dietary issue or sometimes a bug. One of our dogs happens to just "like to eat it" though on walks I don't let her touch it (if you're on a leash its easier to redirect so maybe take them out on a leash and start training them not to). We also started using some treats and a dog-safe meal topping that makes the poop taste awful (and we give it to our other dogs too). This combined with the leash training and cleaning the yard daily has made it nearly impossible for her to do so. Good luck!

We have a 5 month old lab/shepherd mix who had stopped - and now just started this behavior as well (eating his own - not other dogs). I think my Dad is the ultimate accidental cause of this; he goes outside to stop him from doing it which actually causes him to do it. I read that feeding him a bit of pineapple (not a lot, and not everyday due to the high acidity) would get them to stop doing it. Sounds better than dousing his poop in hot sauce (?!?). <---A suggestion I've heard many times but refuse to do.