Why is my dog eating its own poop
Why Do Dogs Eat Their Own Poop: and how to STOP it!
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why does your dog eat their own poop now it might seem like a mystery but in this
video we're not only going to discuss why but we're gonna discuss how you can
stop your dog eating their own poop I
Hi, I'm Dr Alex from our pets health helping you and your pet to live a
healthier happier life and in this video we're going to discuss this really
disgusting habit so it's actually quite common and that problem is dogs eating
their own poop now it might be a complete mystery to you and you might
have tried a number of strategies to try and stop your dog doing this but
thankfully there are a couple of reasons that we think that dogs eat their own
stools and there are some great strategies that we can use so in this
video I'd like to introduce you to Jason Smith from Petco professional pet care
and he's going to talk to you all about why dogs eat their own poop and how you
can stop your dog eating their own poop so without further ado is over to Jason
hi folks Jason Smith here from pet Corps professional pet care thank you dr.
Avery for this opportunity to talk to your audience today you know for over 11
years I've been helping people improve life for their families and pets pet
core does this with our dog waste removal service and Pet Sitting service
today I'm here to talk to you about Co profit
now coprophagia is a fancy word for a very disgusting habit that many dogs
have eating their stool as disgusting as it may seem
copra Aegeus seldom does any harm to your dog's but what causes it there are
three main reasons for copra fujian dogs number one is medical number two is
behavioral and number three is nutritional let's take a moment and
examine the medical issues that may arise that caused coprophagia in animals
the first reason is exocrine pancreatic insufficiency the second one is
pancreatitis the third one is intestinal infections the fourth one is mal
absorptive syndromes and the last one is over feeding especially foods that are
high in fat content now because of these medical issues the
very first thing you should do when you first notice that your dog starts eating
its waste or the waste of another animal is to talk with your veterinarian now I
am NOT a doctor so I cannot go into great detail about these issues but I'm
sure that dr. Avery can go into much greater detail than I regarding these
medical reasons let's move on to the behavioral reasons now there are many
behavioral reasons that are hypothesized by by experts in the field as to why
dogs will engage in coprophagia the first behavioral reason is attention
seeking behavior some dogs when they don't feel like they're getting the
attention that they need will start eating their dog waste as a result
owners will often correct them and this negative attention is still attention to
the animal some people would suggest that you should simply ignore the
problem in hopes it'll go away but we will talk about some other solutions
later on in this video the second behavioral reason is mimicry
this is a learned behavior for some dogs some dogs that spend time in a shelter
situation may observe another dog in the shelter eating its waste or the waste of
another animal and as it notices this it picks it up and adopts this behavior as
its own at home if you're a good pet owner and you clean up after your dog
every time it goes there's a good chance your dog will begin to associate this
idea that when the waste comes out it gets cleaned up and so by understanding
this your dog will begin to help keep the yard clean and the only way it knows
how which is eating the waste the third behavioral reason is maternal
now this is an instinctive behavior of mother dogs they will intuitively clean
off the bottoms of their pups and keep their nesting area clean doing so keeps
predators at bay because as a mama dog we certainly don't want predators coming
into our nesting area while our puppies are vulnerable the fourth behavioral
reason is dominance behavior so some dogs
are trying to assert themselves as the alpha dog and so what they'll do is
they'll adopt the attitude of I'm top dog so I'm gonna eat your waste and
that's how they will assert their dominance over non dominant dogs the
last behavioral reason that dogs engage in coprophagia is reinforcement behavior
basically what this means is that the dogs begin to develop a taste for the
waste dogs will begin to eat their waste they'll develop a palate for the waste
and once they realize that the dog waste is actually pleasing to them they will
continue to do it because it lights up the positive reinforcement centers of
their brain and they continue to do this behavior somewhat compulsively
now the final reason that dogs will engage in coprophagia is nutritional
what this means is that you may be feeding a low-quality food or it has
inadequate nutrition for them or it's simply an unbalanced diet altogether
what you can do is upgrade your food to make sure that your dog is getting all
of the nutritional requirements that it needs and that it has a balanced diet so
what can be done to stop copra Faiza there's no one reason that anyone seems
to agree on but one that absolutely works every single time is to clean up
after the dog why does this work well first of all if there's no waste in the
yard there's nothing to tempt your dog to eat it so it's very important that if
you want to stop copra Faiza that you clean up after the dogs every time they
go when I used to work in a clinic many years ago we would get the question all
the time about what can I do to stop my dog from eating its waste and vet
clinics do have some products that they can give you to help make the waste
unpalatable but what is often cited as a means to make waste unpalatable is
simply adding meat tenderizer to the dog's food other things that you could
add to the dog's food to make the waste unpalatable is pineapple or pineapple
juice now there's this other idea about making waste
palatable and that is simply running out into the yard and sprinkling hot sauce
on the waste now let's be honest if you're gonna take the time to go out in
the yard and sprinkle hot sauce on the waste wouldn't it be better to just
clean it up instead now like I said before copra Fei Jia will sell them to
your dog any sort of harm but there's one thing that all pet owners need to be
worried about and that's parasites now if your dog if you take them fruit if
you take your dog for a walk along your neighborhood or you take them down to
the dog park and your dog engages in copra Fujiya by eating the waste of
another animal your dog could come in contact with parasites such as roundworm
or hookworm and in the case that your dog is eating your cat's waste right out
of the litter box there's a chance that your dog could become infected with a
parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii which causes the disease toxoplasmosis
in your dog in light of this it's often suggested that you train your dog to
avoid the waste altogether so if you notice that your dog is going towards
waste they need to know the leave it command you can teach them leave it it's
going to require a great deal of persistence on your part and consistency
over time to teach them this command so that they do not go near the waste when
they listen to you and they do not go near the waste you need to reward them
as positively as you can it would not hurt to also add a recall command into
the mix now if you don't know how to do this my recommendation would be to work
directly with a professional dog trainer well I hope you found this video to be
very helpful in solving your dog's nasty habit to find out more about pet core
professional pet care and what we're doing to improve life for families and
pets head on over to our channel and check us out okay so big thanks to Jason
for all that great information and I'm sure a number of those strategies will
really help you stop your dog eating their own poop and really get to grips
with this disgusting habit if you've got any questions then please leave me a
comment down below and also make sure that you
check out Jason and pet core professional pet care in the link that I
leave just down here somewhere and until next time I'm dr. alex from our pets
health because they're family
