It is hard to wrap one’s mind around what is driving a perfectly healthy and adequately nourished dog to eat poop. However, this behavior is more common than you might think. Coprophagia is the term that defines this act of eating feces, whether it’s one’s own or others. This habit is not only utterly disturbing, disgusting but also seriously harmful to a dog’s health. But before diving into how to stop them from eating poop, let’s figure out why they do it in the first place.
Why Do Dogs Prefer Eating Poop?
To acknowledge a single reason is yet not possible since not enough evidence or proper studies give a solid answer to it. However, numerous theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain why dogs eat poop.
Isolation And Attention Seeking
It will not be wide of the mark to say that most dogs are social beings and naturally curious. Leaving your dog unsupervised for long or not being attentive to their needs like playtime, park walks, or simply spending time with them may leave them in depths of boredom and isolation. It is why most dogs go out looking for things to do, explore reachable grounds, play with and eat feces when they find any.
Moreover, since eating poop gets them to hold your attention quickly, they positively reinforce the behavior so that you’d notice them and maybe play a little.
It Is All Nature
Did you know that most mother dogs eat their puppies’ feces after birth during the first three weeks of lactation? They do so to protect the puppies and keep their surroundings clean.
The condition of slippers and other chewable stuff around the house might outright tell you how orally fixated dogs are. It drives them into eating their poop or of other creatures’ whenever found. While it may be relatively harmless to consume their poop, it is not the case with that of other animals’ since poop contaminated with intestinal parasites, toxins, or viruses may severely impact their health.
An Underlying Condition Or Disease
There’s a condition known as Pica that particularly drives a dog to eat inedible and non-food items such as hair, stones, feces, dry walls, dirt, etc. Though it may or may not be the case for your dog, sometimes eating stool is also a symptom of an underlying illness, and therefore to get your dog at the vet’s for a checkup is the best you could do.
Nutritional Deficiencies
If your dog is inadequately nourished or does not get the requisite dose of nutrition his body craves, chances are he’d consume feces to fulfill this deficiency. Again, getting him to a vet or changing his diet is something you must try.
