Puppy stool eating

4 posts

I have a common problem with puppies, but without a common number of pups involved. Our dog had 11 pups a few months ago and we're having a problem with them eating stools, sometimes their own and sometimes the adult dogs'. We've tried the stool eating deterrent products to no avail. It has been suggested that keeping the yard meticulously clean and/or walking a puppy on a leash is the only sure way to combat the problem, but we still have seven pups and I don't know how to go about taking this advice. Even if I clean the yard constantly to rid it of the waste of 7 pups and 3 adults, I can't walk seven pups at one time! Also, many times the pups will eat the stools of the adults as it is being deposited, so to speak. To take out each of 10 dogs separately would be an all day affair. Any suggestions for deterring this many puppies from stool eating? They've tested positive for parasites and all 10 dogs are on Albon, but I'm afraid they'll keep getting reinfected if I can't stop this behavior. Thanks.

From Uk, 45 posts

Poop Eating is Normal. Copraphagia is a normal dog behavior, or at least, normal wolf behavior. The first time food goes through a dog, digestion only removes around 50% of the nutrients.



If a wolf is injured, it can live until it heals by eating the feces of it's better fed pack mates. One of the first things that attracted dogs to humans was the chance to scavenge human feces when times were hard. Since many diseases are species specific the canine cleaning crew benefited its human neighbors by decontaminating human feces with a trip through the canine digestive system.



Pariah dogs tend to survive on garbage, feces and dead bodies, which is one of the reasons that some cultures consider dogs to be unclean.



Now that we provide them with kibble and canned food, Copraphagia is no longer necessary but is still a retained behavior in some dogs.



Frequent clean up is the best prevention. By the way, every brood bitch on earth is Copraphagia, - they consume the puppies feces. If they didn't stimulate the puppies elimination at first the puppies would die. When they are older, the b itch, just like a wolf b itch, gains calories by reprocessing puppy poop. It is, after all, only her partially digested milk.



Rules for Copraphagia Dog Owners

1) Don't kiss a Copraphagia dog on the mouth

2) Don't reach into a Copraphagia dog's mouth to remove an unknown item in the dark.



Gail Branigan Reprinted from GPA/CA/OC & GLA Newsletter.

From UK, 19 posts

Hi ,



In this instance I've amended the spelling, more often than not it's not used in its correct context, hence us having to ban the word. Thanks for an informative post.



Sue

From USA, 2 posts

There are products on the market to help prevent a dog from continuing this bad habit outside of motherhood.
They are quite effective, from what I hear.

Thanks
~Lisa