From this article, a guy did a DIY gut flora transplant: https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/4/11581994/fmt-fecal-matter-transplant-josiah-zayner-microbiome-ibs-c-diff
With dogs routinely doing this, do they gain a more resilient gut biome? Is that part of why they’re able to eat pretty much whatever – by trading gut flora with one another?
I think it’s the other way round. Humans have pathetically weak guts as a result of cooking most of our food for the past several thousand years. Dogs have evolved very resilient digestive systems as a result their ancestors being oportunistic scavengers. Therefore they can eat poop. They can also eat some pretty funky meat and I don’t think it would improve your own gut biome to emulate this.
Well, if my dog’s gut is so tough why whenever she eats anything other than her regular dog food (like she gets into the cat’s food) she gets the runs for a day or three? Plus, she has never had any inclination to eat dog poop, either her own or other dogs’. Now cat poop or goose poop or…
Yeah, I’ve got to say none of my dogs had ever eaten poop. None of them were all that finicky, either, belonging to the species canis eatius anythingus.
So now I know why they do two things.
I don’t have the answer but my dogs’ digestive systems are a mystery to me. We hike in the woods every morning and if I’m not watching them closely they eat deer, rabbit, wolf coyote, fox, etc poop. You’d think they were eating steak they way they act if I tell them “leave it” - they gulp it down as fast as they can so I can’t “take it away”. They also drink swamp and puddle water. They never seem to get sick, but give our boxer a piece of sausage and the next day he’s off his food and has the poops! Who knows?!
Just a note about our generally lassaiz-faire attitude toward doggie fine dining: As a city dweller, I draw the line (i.e., freak) when he starts drinking puddles especially near the river or buildings, subways, whatever: rat piss in water carries lepto, and even the prophylactic shots don’t cover them all, and it’s a pretty strong fatal disease.
But why do they die if they eat chocolate or onions?
Being in the city, there could be antifreeze leaking from cars and getting into the puddles, too. Very bad for dogs.
A long, long time ago, I was in the school marching band. Dogs would love to eat the horse poop. They would clean up after the parades. Probably, it was where they got their pre-digested salad.
Probably doesn’t happen nowadays. No stray dogs.
According to The Master, dogs eat poop just to gross out their humans. Sorry I don’t have time to look up the cite.
No cite, but “I read somewhere” that dogs specifically favor cat poo. Supposedly because domestic pussycats digestive systems don’t process their meat chow very efficiently, resulting in stools that are especially odoriferous. Smells like catshit to human people, but to an omnivorous dog it smells more like the meat that originally went into the cat.
I’d really like to hear from someone who knows whether or not this is accurate.
Certainly it is seen experimentally in mice. Cohousing leads to microbiota transfer, at least presumptively through coprophagy (overt poop eating) and incidental fecal ingestion of others during grooming behaviors. Hence mice cohoused will have faster microbiota recovery from antibiotic-induced perturbations than those housed alone.
A more reasonable article about the behavior:
Also in there is the tendency for animals to eat poop for incompletely digested foodstuffs contained (which I’ve heard is more common in dogs on grain high diets).
My dog, Daisy, is a finicky pooch foodie and she most assuredly does not eat dog poop, thank you very much.
She does, however, have a fondness for cat poop. She raids our cat, Tibbys’ litter pan on a regular basis, and appears fit as a fiddle as a result.
Poached cat poop on buttered toast drizzled with hollandaise sauce and a side of guacamole is not so bad…or, so I’ve been told.
Psstt…OP…you don’t want to give people ideas.
What with drinking one’s own urine becoming a staple among the woo set, it might not be long before shit-eating turns into the next fad.
Not other folks’ poop though, that’d be disgusting. :smack:
It must feel good to do it … why else would there be so many shit-eating grins?
I almost think that’s a myth. The dog of a friend of mine once ate an entire Halloween bag of chocolate candy bars and the vet just shrugged and said “Well, keep an eye on him.” No medicine, stomach pumping, emetics, etc. The dog was fine afterwards.
My sister’s black lab stole and ate four bars bakers chocolate. It caused a minor panic until the dog barfed it all back up. If the dog didn’t barf it up, it might have been toxic.
Dogs have rather robust stomach acids (as low as pH 2, or even less), which will among other thing do a number on bones - Most bacteria aren’t going to live long enough to make it to the gut.