Help! Poo Eater

[forpaws1]

Hi, a work colleague (1st puppy) has just purchased a 10 week old Weimarner. puppy, she is on three meals a day - premium dry food and is eating her droppings. They clean up as soon as she goes to the toilet to try and prevent her eating, but can you give her some adivce on how she might stop this problem.

Thanks for your help.

[qashmir]

Many vets have told me that if they could invent a solution for this, they'd be multi millionaires!! But try all the tips that hopefully people will post here and maybe they'll work. Good luck!

[sjl79]

We found it stopped when we switched to BARF diet - literally overnight, his next BARF poop was left sitting proudly on the pet loo (unlike the previous weeks where we would come home to find just a smear of poop on the bacony tiles ... ewww!).

ETA: Someone once recommended adding cooked mashed pumpkin to their food too.

Edited May 22, 2008 by sjl79

[NoodleNut]

We found it stopped when we switched to BARF diet - literally overnight, his next BARF poop was left sitting proudly on the pet loo (unlike the previous weeks where we would come home to find just a smear of poop on the bacony tiles ... ewww!).

ETA: Someone once recommended adding cooked mashed pumpkin to their food too.

Ours is nearly 6 months and we have tried Barf and now back to the dry, eating raw chicken and chicken necks and apples and carrots and no difference at all. I haven't resorted to the pumpkin, pineapple ideas as I don't want to give her the runs .. hate wiping her butt! Sorry ... just telling the truth. The vets don't seem to concerned but it is a DISGUSTING habit! My girl looks very healthy great coat ... maybe I have hit on something here that is not negative :D Don't think it is saleable though ....................grin

PS I can't follow her around all day with Bitter lime spray either even though she it not too worried about it anyway.

Fellow poo eating puppy owner

[ruffcat]

Our lab pup started eating poo - we have four dogs at home, so while we do a daily clean up of the yard, there's usually a bit about by afternoon.

Our vet suggested adding pineapple to the dogs dinner as it apparently made the poo less appealing - and it's worked! (It didnt give them the runs - but we were judicious with the amount)

[Teebs]

My dog does it, as do a few other dogs i know - but only when it is cold - must like a warm meal in winter :D

[tdierikx]

I have a Rottie/Pittie cross who wouldn't even wait for one of my old Rottie girls to finish before she was into it... gross! Now the cross and Lab eat each other's, but leave the stuff coming from my foster girl alone... it's not doing them any harm, and I clean up daily, but it's an uphill battle...

T.

[melbournecritters]

The pineapple was also recommended by my vet :D It changes the taste to very bitter apparently (much like the bitter apple that you get to spray on things you don't want them to chew).

[trifecta]

The pineapple was also recommended by my vet It changes the taste to very bitter apparently (much like the bitter apple that you get to spray on things you don't want them to chew).

No, the pineapple theory is that the dog is lacking in Potassium. If the dog has an enzymatic deficiency & is always hungry or looking for particular nutrients this can easily be tested at the vets, however with most coprophagic dogs it is a learned behaviour.... usually from their dam. I have a BSD who is coprohagic... her mother also was fond of the habit, as was another litter mate.

[charli73]

Pineapple worked for us for a week or so, then it was suggested to re-direct her attention after she pooped so she forgot all about eating it, as when I rushed to pick it up after she made it into a race.

Once I got her attention elsewhere she soon forgot about eating it and she grew out of it.

She does however still like the cats poop and eats possum poo when we're out walking...

[trifecta]

Forgot to mention Thrive D is a product that is advocated for coprophagia.... but it didn't work for me, LOL!

[Miranda]

Most puppies grow out of it, I have two here who ate the other dogs' poo (not their own) until they were about 12 months and then they stopped. However I have a bitch here who still does it and she's 7, but she doesn't do it at home just on walks

I've found that the best way to deal with it is to pick up poo regularly and wait till they grow out of it as most of them do.

[Michelleva]

We have a cavalier and he doesn't eat his own, but its a race to see who can get to the kitty litter tray first. He's literally waiting outside the laundry when he hears the cat go in there. And he's definitely not a pup, he just celebrated his 8th Birthday!

[Miranda]

We have a cavalier and he doesn't eat his own, but its a race to see who can get to the kitty litter tray first. He's literally waiting outside the laundry when he hears the cat go in there. And he's definitely not a pup, he just celebrated his 8th Birthday!

That's normal, I've never met a dog who didn't love cat poo, all my dogs would kill for it, it's a real delicacy :D

[k9kutz]

One of my Toy Poodles also has a taste for kitty poo. I have one of those big enclosed litter trays with the flap on it and i will often find him with his head inside having a feed. Or sometimes if he gets to the litter box after one of the cats has just been and before i do, he will proudly carry the poop out and drop it at my feet, Then thinks its OK to want to give me kisses afterwards. Such a gorse little creature, i wish he ate his own food as keen as he does the second hand cat food. :rolleyes: