Eating own poo (coprophagia)

[Aideenkok]

Horrible post but hoping you can help. My rough collie pup who is 5 months old has been eating his own poo. I catch him most of the time but not always.
I’m presently feeding autark puppy plus a pouch of wet food natura.
Has anyone else had this problem?
Do you think change of food would help?
If so , what would you recommend?Thank you

[Tinyplanets]

Hello and welcome to the forum,
Although not pleasant, this isn't particularly uncommon behaviour in dogs. It isn't fully understood why they do it. Possibly learned behaviour or just because they like it. My dog used to eat cow dung and probably still would given half a chance. Some people say that adding pineapple to the food can make it less palatable to eat. I suppose that would also make the food less palatable though. The only thing that I have been able to do is take her away from the poo when she tries to eat it. Easy for me because she is a small fear reactive terrier who has to be stay her lead, all be it a long one. She sometimes has a mouth full or two before I get to her.

[Dottie]

Hello and welcome to the forum. The name for this is coprophagia and as tinyplanets says, it is not uncommon. Why some dogs do it and other dogs don’t is something of a mystery but as your pup is young it could be that his breeder was not quick enough to clean up or perhaps he needed more food. That’s conjecture though.

Anyway, he has started the habit and unfortunately it is one which is not easy to solve. Some folk say pineapple helps, others recommend putting chilli powder on the poo. In my experience they don’t work. The only thing that does work is vigilance and cleaning up immediately. You need to encourage him to poo when you are there. If he is not supervised then use a light muzzle. 

Diet wise, I am not familiar with the foods that you are using but having just checked, Autarky Puppy review is here and the nutritional rating is 75%  so it is not bad.  Most dry foods have a high carb content (part of which is fibre), needed to form the biscuit. Because of this dogs usually have bigger stools when on dry food. If they have not been able to process all of this, maybe there is residue that is attractive to them. Dogs that are fed fresh cooked or raw food have much smaller, firm stools because there are no so called ‘fillers’. Arguably, this type of stool is a perhaps less attractive as there would be no, or little sugar content.

There are other threads on this topic so if you want to look at them use the search box and the term ‘coprophagia’.

[Rebecca Forrest]

I used to puppy walk for guide dogs, and one of my puppies, ( a German shepherd ) used to eat horse poo when out on a walk. Not really  a
 in problem with pet dogs maybe, but with a trainee guide dog this can cause problems with needing to go to the toilet more the next day not easy as you  take them into shops etc. I stopped this by using a pet correcter
Pet Corrector 200ml (Online Only) | Pets At Home ,sounds like a goose hiss. I used this about 2-3 times, and after this the dog used to steer clear of the horse poo as he was unsure of the poo because it kept hissing at him and he use to go up near it but give it a wide birth.
You use it by not letting them see the can, but as they go up to the poo or what ever you want to stop them doing you  press it and it lets out a hiss, it may work but worth a try.
 

[Dottie]

I hadn’t heard of that but it worked for that dog so it has the potential to work for others. Thank you for telling us about this novel approach. Horse poo can be a problem - I’ve had previous dogs who liked a nibble of it.