Why do animals eat feces?

[Tully_Mars]

@bouv

This just goe to show how perverted I am. When you said cat’s box, I didn’t immediatly think litter box, I thought you meant the cat’s box, if you catch my drift, and I was like :eek:

You would really go :eek: if you saw my two mini-daschunds (both spayed) 69ing in the living room floor.

[The_Chao_Goes_Mu]

I have two dogs, a terrier-wolfhound mix that only on the rare occassion dines on his own shit biscuits, (mostly in the winter when they are frozen shitcicles) However, my german shepherd-lab-chow-and other “big dog” mix regularly eats from the turd buffet. She eats both hers and her brother’s ass-muffins. I can’t stand it. She’s healthy and has a great diet and the vet said some dogs just like the taste their shit. Go figure.

[rocksolid]

It’s probably not relevant given the age of your pup but i believe puppies can often start this habit as a result of house training gone wrong. If the dog gets the misunderstanding that a telling off for crapping in the house was actually a telling off for just crapping anywhere then they’ll develop the habit of tidying up after themselves in order to please you. Yet another reason to train by the praise good, ignore bad method.

Also, one thing that i don’t think anybody has actually stated explicitly is that although disgusting by our standards, i don’t think its harmful and not generally a sign of anything to worry about. The anxiety caused by the above reason excepted.

[brendon_small]

@rocksolid

It’s probably not relevant given the age of your pup but i believe puppies can often start this habit as a result of house training gone wrong. If the dog gets the misunderstanding that a telling off for crapping in the house was actually a telling off for just crapping anywhere then they’ll develop the habit of tidying up after themselves in order to please you. Yet another reason to train by the praise good, ignore bad method.

I understand this, but she is fully house trained and is usually very good about it. I know there is probably not a major reason why I worry about her doing this, I just wonder about what would motivate her to do such a thing. I cleaned off her face just because she smelled so bad, and gave her doggie breath mints. She seems to be fine, has went outside several times and never even looked twice towards another turd…

Maybe she was just curious…

Brendon

[ouryL]

@BubbaDog

A friend of mine had a dog that would eat its own poo even though it had plenty of dog food available. He asked his vet for an explanation.

The vet said that -

Some dogs do it because they are sick and can’t tell the difference in taste

Some do it in response to difficiencies in their diet

Some do it out of hunger

And some do just because they just plain old like the taste

My dog, Bubba, has never chomped his own to my knowledge but he did give the cat’s box the buffet treatment once or twice during his puppy phase.

When we first got our cat, we had the hardest time figuring out where he was pooping. The cat box was relatively doody free. It was then we noticed our German Shepherd sniffing around the litterbox. :eek: