Help! My pup eats his poop!

In My Humble Opinion
21

She looks like a Doodle (retriever x poodle). Very cute!

What a cutie (both of them!)

I am also a new puppy owner, as of Saturday. Simon is an almost 4 month old English Setter mix that we adopted from a shelter. He ate poop twice that I have witnessed: once at the shelter when we first met him, and again in the car on the ride home. He hasn’t gone for it since we brought him home, so maybe he grew out of it, or maybe it was a shelter habit? I feed canned + dry, and I read that poop reminds puppies of early meals from mama dog (warm and moist) so maybe feeding the canned turned him around? I don’t know.

My main problem with him now is that he hates the crate. I really need to get him used to it as it is impossible to supervise him 24/7 and it makes house training so much easier. I read that sometimes shelter dogs are harder to crate train because they’ve spent so much time caged already. I’ve tried feeding him in there, but he will take a few bites and then gets agitated. I know it takes time, but I’m afraid to leave him alone even long enough so I can take a shower!

My SO has been sleeping on the couch with him the past two nights and wakes up and takes him out when the puppy wakes - but that isn’t an ideal solution.

I need him to be crate trained!

22

My aunt (she is the president of a dog rescue and has always worked with dogs) suggests this to. But, she adds that you have to specifically make sure the meat tenderizer contains MSG.

Oh, and you put in on the food, not the poop. When people ask me that, I tell them that if they get close enough to the poop to sprinkle something on it, they might as well just pick it up at that point.

23

Sadie has been sleeping in my husband’s room. She usually makes it through the night without needing a potty break, but if she needs one, she lets him know and he takes her out. We take her out as soon as she wakes up – we don’t even let her feet hit the floor – and again about an hour after she eats and whenever she wakes up from a nap. There have been a couple of messes on the floor but that’s to be expected. She wants to be near one of us all the time, so it’s been relatively easy to watch her.

We’re still debating about a crate but we’re hoping we won’t need one. One or the other of us is almost always home, and we quickly learned not to expect to keep our usual routine. It’s really just like having a new baby (minus the teeth and claws).

Simon is quite handsome!

24

The general consensus for most breeds is that puppies should stay with their mother for at least 8 weeks, and that consensus seems to hold true specifically for Golden Retrievers.

It looks like you’re saying you picked your guy up at 7 weeks. I don’t know if that could be contributing to the behavior or not.

As he gets older, you can try training the “Leave it!” command, which is a life-saver (for instance, if you see him heading for a pool of antifreeze in the parking lot). You then have to pick up poop in your yard, and use “Leave it!” every time you see him smelling, or leaning toward, poop.

Training the “Leave it!” command can be done positively – our dogs learned it positively and are pretty solid at it. Training may not be possible until he grows a bit, and should be done at first in an isolated session without distractions, then add distractions as he progresses. When first training the dog on this command, put the treat down in front of him but just a little far for comfortable reach, cover it with your hand, and say “Leave it!” sharply.

Now wait.

When the dog takes his attention OFF the treat, praise and reward him with a different treat. Click if you’re clicker-training. The key is that he NEVER eats the treat that was the subject of the “Leave it!” command, even though he gets a separate treat for taking his attention off the target treat. Put the target treat into your pocket; it can go back into the general treat container later, of course.

I was flabbergasted at how quickly both our girls picked this up when taught in this way.

As soon as he seems to get it you can take your hand away and work on progressively leaving the treat more physically unguarded (only the command is protecting it).

Lots of repetition in short sessions should get you to the point where you can wave the treat under his nose, get him hyper, then set it in front of him, give the command, and walk some distance away, and he’ll look at you and not the target treat.

This and the “recall” (come here!) are the two most important lifesaving commands.

25

It’s the ‘almost’ always part that made me decide to crate train (plus, the shelter really recommends it). My last puppy (uh, 18 years ago) was super easy to crate train and took to it immediately. He was completely housebroken 2 weeks after I got him. Plus, if I travel with my dog, need to evacuate home due to an emergency or need to leave him at the vet it will be much easier if he is already familiar with his crate.

I just discovered that Simon wasn’t happy eating in his crate because he doesn’t like the Orijen puppy food I bought him. Luckily I have a free trial bag of some other quality food I picked up at the pet store and he ate that up.

26

My pup did this but grew out of it naturally. Thank god, because she’s a total face hugger.