Puppies Eating Poop
By:WCPS
Puppies and poop eating. It is just something that a lot of puppies do. There are a host of different potential health problems that your puppy could have that inspire him to eat his own feces. One of the reasons could be that he has an allergy and hasn't completely digested the food that he has consumed. He then smells the undigested nutrition that wasn't extracted the first time through his system and eats accordingly.
Some feel that feces eating is part of an instinctual trait that dogs have from thousands of years ago when dogs were cave dwellers. The theory is that ancient dogs used to eat their own waste to keep their caves/dens clean. Dogs tend to keep their living areas clean, and don't defecate in their “hangout spots.” Another theory is that mother dogs eat the defecation of their puppies sometimes in order to keep the nest clean. This could be learned behavior. Dogs in kennels learn this behavior for other dogs too.
But unfortunately it is probably just that your puppy likes the taste of his poop. And now he has a bad habit.
There are three points to realize if your puppy is eating his poo. One is that this is common. This happens a lot more than you think. Your puppy isn't an anomaly. The second is that to a dog, this is relatively normal behavior. Dogs scavenge, and they take everything into their mouths. It is the humans who are disgusted by it. The third is that it is a habit that can be stopped.
There are some simple solutions to this problem. One is to walk your puppy out with a leash when it is time for him to go. That way you are on the case and able to get him out of there before he can give in to his bad habit. The other (which runs tandem to the previous suggestion) is to clean your dog's poop up immediately after your dog goes.
When these solutions are too much to handle, there are several over-the-counter methods as well. Some dog owners suggest adding a meat tenderizer to the puppy's food in order to make the dog's feces taste bad. Others suggest pumpkin or pineapple added to the puppy's food as other coprophagy deterrents. If these are items that you've tried and haven't had success with, Four Paws offers a product called Potty Mouth which should do the trick.
Potty Mouth is a packet of 60 or 120 chewable tablets. If you feed your puppy one tablet for every ten lbs of food consumed the results should be noticeable within the first 2 week cycle. A preventative dosage of a tablet a day can be used as well.
Potty Mouth isn't full of a bunch of undecipherable chemicals either. Its ingredients list features brewers yeast, cayenne vitamins B1, B2 and B6, niaciamide (also part of the B vitamin group), iron and copper.
If you do a cursory online search for customer reactions to Potty Mouth you will see that this is a product that does what it is supposed to do. If you use Potty Mouth, in just a short amount of time you will have your dog cured of this foul habit.
