I have a chi that eats the poo of one of only one of
my other chi's (I have 4). For her it's a
territorial/alpha issue. I have to watch them when
they go out to potty, lol. Goofy dogs. Gotta love 'em.
Penny
(Muffin, Cocoa, Sadie, Chica)
--- Eileen Gery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> This is from vetinfo.com:
>
> Coprohagia is the technical term for eating feces.
> This has been
> studied in dogs by several people with no definitive
> answer for "why"
> being found.
>
> Nutritional deficiencies may be present in some
> dogs, but not very
> many. This may be boredom related in many dogs. It
> has some "natural"
> roots in the fact that dams often eat their pup's
> stools, apparently
> as a method of hiding their presence from predators.
> Dogs will eat
> the stools of other species, especially cats and
> rabbits, too. Dogs
> obviously do not find the taste of feces
> objectionable or the
> behavior would be self correcting. So I think of
> this as a natural
> behavior that upsets people. Since dogs have to live
> with people, it
> is becomes an issue. There is a product sold that is
> supposed to help
> with this habit -- Forbid. It doesn't work in all
> cases (it might not
> even work in most cases). Another alternative is
> putting meat
> tenderizer in the dog's food. This works for some
> dogs. Walking a dog
> on a leash and working hard to keep it from turning
> and eating its
> stool is helpful. It is sometimes possible to
> distract the dog by
> running a short distance after the dog has a bowel
> movement or by
> taking a couple of rapid steps then telling the dog
> to "sit" and
> giving it a treat. These behaviors may stay on as
> substitutes to
> eating the stool. If you can keep the dog from
> eating stool for a
> month or so it is sometimes long enough to break the
> habit. Picking
> up stool to prevent its ingestion works in dogs that
> don't quickly
> eat their own stool but do so when put in the yard
> alone. "Booby
> trapping" a sample of stool by cutting it in half
> lengthwise, and
> putting some Tabasco type sauce on the inside of the
> stool, then
> putting it back together so that the dog is not
> aware of the hotsauce
> until it eats the stool can help in some cases. This
> can be a hard
> habit to break.
>
> Mike Richards, DVM
>
>
>
>
>
>
Penny
(Muffin,Sadie,Cocoa,Chica)
Texas
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