Dog Advice – Eating Poo!
This is a typical behaviour observed in many dogs. This is also known as coprophagia. This is referred as a behavioural problem but care should be taken not to rule out any medical condition that can also be a cause.
Medical Causes
1. Any medical problem leading to low absorption of nutrients in the body.
2. Feeding a poorly digestible diet, underfeeding, and medical conditions that decrease absorption such as digestive enzyme deficiencies or parasites, could lead to malnutrition, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and therefore an increased appetite and possibly stool eating.
Behavioural Causes
1. When puppies are left unsupervised, they may simply begin to investigate, play with, and even eat stools as a playful or investigative activity.
2. There is a copy behaviour component also as the bitch cleans and ingests the puppy’s excrement in the nest, the puppies may learn to mimic the behaviour of their mother or playmates who perform this behaviour.
3. To get attention from their owners.
4. Anxiety, stress, or having been punished for bad behaviours.
5. Boredom.
6. To clean up in crowded conditions.
7. By nature dogs have scavenger behaviour
8. To prevent the scent from attracting predators, especially mother dogs eating their offspring's feces.
9. Texture and temperature of fresh feces approximates that of regurgitated food, which is how canine mothers in the wild would provide solid food.Hunger due to changes in eating routines or when the food is withheld.
What to Do?
1. If your pet is not being fed a quality dog food, increase the quality and quantity of the dog food you feed your dog.
2. Make the stool taste repulsive to dogs by using a vegetable-based chewable tablet over his food bowl.
3. Keep your yard clean and feces free.
Links
http://www.petbehaviourcentre.com/articles/a_poo.htm
http://www.understandinganimals.com/article/3
Posts
