The dog ate cat feces, what should I do? The dog eats feces: why, what is missing
Is your puppy interested in piles?
Find out how to wean him off
Puppies Eat Poop More Often Than You Think
The phrase “eating heartily” doesn’t always apply to food when it comes to a dog. This phrase begins to play with new colors, smells and consequences if the puppy has tasted excrement. Let's define the terminology accepted in the scientific community.
Coprophagia is a dog eating rabbit, sheep, horse, bird, cat, and sometimes its own manure.
Many puppy owners are faced with the problem of their pet’s annoying desire for coprophagia. If you think that this situation could only happen to your dog, you are mistaken. Millions of four-legged animals all over the planet happily eat excrement. Especially if they contain partially digested food.
"Coprophagia is not a disease, but simply an extremely unpleasant phenomenon that can be combated
Coprophagia is not a disease, but simply an extremely unpleasant phenomenon that can be dealt with: determine the cause, outline an action plan, follow it and achieve the desired result. First, let's find out why your puppy eats his own or other people's excrement?
Why does a puppy eat his own or other people's excrement?
There are several reasons for this behavior in puppies. Let's analyze them together.
Intestinal formation
In puppies, fecal ingestion is often associated with gastrointestinal development. Excrement contains a large number of beneficial bacteria and enzymes that help digest food and improve intestinal motility. This need arises in babies up to three months of age. Gradually, the puppy’s digestion improves and the need for coprophagia disappears by itself. However, sometimes it develops into a bad habit, which is much more difficult to get rid of.
Imitating an adult dog or owner
Coprophagia is normal behavior for a lactating bitch. In this way she tries to keep her lair clean. A puppy, watching its mother, sometimes adopts her habit. It is necessary to stop this behavior in time, otherwise imitation of an adult dog becomes the reason why the puppy continues to eat its feces when it grows up.
The puppy can eat its own feces, imitating the owner who cleans it up. The baby instinctively tries to get rid of punishment if the owner has previously poked his nose at them or screamed loudly.
Lack of vitamins and minerals
A similar problem often appears if your pet’s diet lacks vitamins and microelements. The puppy, by eating excrement, tries to compensate for the deficiency of these substances.
Insufficient calorie intake
A lack of calories in a small pet's diet is another cause of coprophagia. Imbalance in nutrition, lack of protein and carbohydrates encourages the puppy to replenish its menu with the heaps it finds.
How dangerous are helminths for dogs and humans?
Apart from coprophagia, what should a puppy owner be wary of? Signs of helminthiasis
In addition to coprophagia, a puppy with helminthiasis will experience the following symptoms:
- Change in appetite;
- Lethargy, apathy, exhaustion;
- Bloating;
- Alternating constipation and diarrhea;
- The presence of mucus, blood, worms in the stool;
- Vomit;
- Itching in the anal area.
Coprophagia is a dangerous habit that can cause your pet to become infected with various diseases. Some of these diseases can be transmitted to humans. To protect your pet, yourself and your family, you need to stop your puppy from eating excrement. Next, we will talk about the most effective ways to correct unwanted animal behavior.
How to stop a puppy from eating feces? 5 effective ways
Method 1. Use special dietary supplements
Most often, coprophagia is a consequence of errors in the preparation of a pet’s diet. If you are sure that your puppy receives all the necessary micro- and macroelements, vitamins and minerals with food, introduce a special dietary supplement into his diet.
Manufacturers of veterinary drugs have not ignored the problem of puppies eating excrement. Pet stores offer dietary supplements designed to help the owner correct the pet’s behavior and speed up the process of weaning it from a bad habit.
Method 2. Provide your puppy with proper nutrition
Coprophagia can be caused by a lack of microelements in the puppy's food. We have already written that the feces of dogs and other animals contain nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.
Analyze your pet’s diet; it must include proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the required proportions. The best products for natural feeding of a puppy are fermented milk, meat, and fiber (vegetables).
If your dog eats commercial food, choose premium and super premium food. The food must be suitable for the puppy’s species (for dogs), age and health status.
Method 3. Use a muzzle while walking
This simple accessory will help you protect your pet from eating feces and other inedible objects. To prevent your pet from picking up anything from the ground, all you need to do is use a light nylon muzzle. During short walks, the puppy will not experience discomfort in it, but will be reliably protected from eating his own or other people’s excrement. Use a leash in conjunction with a muzzle.
Method 4. Teach the “fu” command
Training perfectly corrects your pet’s behavior in combination with the methods listed above. Teaching a puppy the “fu” command is easy. For some puppies, the command “fu!” with a threatening intonation at the moment of committing unwanted actions, she is already able to stop them. And after they are carried out, such a command turns into a punishment.
If your pet has a stable psyche, more stringent measures will be required: a tug on the leash, a spank. A completely natural way for dogs is to grab him by the scruff of the neck and shake him. A sharp action must be accompanied by a command.
After your pet successfully completes the command, reward him with a treat.
At the beginning of the article, we already told you that a puppy can eat its own or other people’s excrement due to infection with helminths. What to do in this case?
An effective way to rid your pet of unwanted behavior is to treat the puppy for worms using a special anthelmintic drug.
To prevent the problem of perverted appetite in the puppy from returning, give him an anthelmintic drug once every 3 months.
Many breeders, kennel owners and dog owners choose the broad-spectrum drug Prazitel to effectively solve the problem of helminth infection in puppies. Why do they choose Prazitel?
Prazitel is trusted by millions of dog owners
The drug is effective against all types of helminths
Prazitel has a wide spectrum of action against round (roundworms, toxacara, hookworm, uncinarium) and tapeworms (cucumber tapeworm, mesocestoids, echinococci, broad tapeworms) helminths at all stages of their development (eggs, larvae, adults).
The high effectiveness of the drug against helminths increases your chances in the fight to wean your puppy from eating its own excrement.
Safe for the puppy's body
Prazitel suspension has a high degree of purification. The higher the degree of purification of the drug, the safer its effect for the puppy’s young body. Prazitel is completely eliminated from the body 24 hours after using the drug.
The topic is not very pleasant, but important. Many owners of four-legged pets have experienced this, and this pushes some owners away from their beloved friends and scares them. They wonder why the dog eats poop, what is wrong, is it normal? It is important to find the answer and understand the reason for this dog’s behavior.
Reasons for dogs to eat poop
Dogs are similar to people in some ways; they experience different experiences and emotions. Scientists have found that a pet deprived of the owner’s attention is many times more likely to eat its own feces than a dog that constantly feels affection.
But the main reason that a dog eats feces is an incorrect diet. So, for example, if we consider wild dogs, they eat manure to improve digestion. It contains a large number of microorganisms that promote rapid digestion of food. This has been the case since ancient times, this habit was passed down from the ancient ancestors of dogs and remained in modern animals at the level of instinct. In today's cities it is almost impossible to find manure, so they start eating their own or cat feces.
Nutrition and disease
The main reasons why dogs start eating their own excrement are as follows:
- Unbalanced diet. Owners feed their pets only porridge or only meat.
- Too many bones in the diet.
- The dog constantly overeats.
- Frequent feeding of various treats (from the table), which negatively affect the animal’s digestion.
- Lack of vitamins.
- Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
In fact, there are many reasons why a dog eats feces, but these are the most basic ones, and every owner should know about them. Experts in animal psychology believe that a dog that picks up feces with a balanced diet and, being absolutely healthy, does this on purpose in order to provoke its owner to some kind of reaction and he shows emotions. The animal simply does not have enough attention. For this reason, it is important to find closer contact with your pet, perhaps simply increase the walking time, and spend it with physical activity.
Imitation
When the puppies are born, the mother removes traces of their activity by eating their feces. So that the brood is not discovered by predators. Young individuals notice this and begin to imitate her. The owner must not miss this moment and stop this behavior, otherwise the puppies will get used to it, and in adulthood it will be much more difficult to wean them.
What is the danger?
- Helminths. Worms that even threaten humans. A dog infected with helminthiasis may die without treatment.
- Parvovirus. This disease is deadly, severe and most often affects young dogs.
- Leptospirosis. An infectious disease that affects puppies and young animals. It is deadly, the animal expects death after infection in just 10–12 hours.
- Toxoplasmosis. This infectious disease can be transmitted to humans. It is very dangerous, and dogs at least 7–8 years old are susceptible to it. Such animals have weakened immunity, and even with the help of medicine they cannot cope with the disease.
To wean a dog from a bad habit, first of all you need to make behavioral adjustments, but before starting classes, it is important to find out the reasons for your pet’s behavior. Why does a dog eat poop? What exactly influenced this?
What should an owner do to stop a dog from eating excrement?
How to wean a dog from this bad and dangerous habit? This cannot be done without mandatory adjustments. To rid a pet of “coprophagia”, the owner must act as follows:
- Find the cause and completely eliminate it.
- Pay attention to your diet and revise it if necessary.
- Spend more time with your dog (walks, playing outdoors).
- Start raising and training your dog.
- Take your four-legged friend to the vet (there may be health problems).
- Carry out all appointments and procedures prescribed by a veterinarian in a timely manner.
It is important for the owner to understand that punishment, in this case, will not achieve anything, and to abandon this method. The reason why this method will not help is simple: it is impossible to fight instinct. To rid your pet of a bad habit, there is a better way. If the dog decides to eat excrement during a walk, then you need to act this way:
- Call your pet to you.
- The dog came up to give him some treat.
- Distract the animal with another activity that arouses its interest (playing a ball, throwing a stick).
The owner, when going for a walk with his pet, should not forget to take with him treats, as well as toys that the dog loves most. You can’t leave your dog unattended or let him mind his own business. During walks, you need to devote all your time to the dog.
Daily training and studying the main commands “Fu”, “Sit”, “Come to me” will help teach the animal to obey. At first, when going out for a walk, you need to put a muzzle on the dog, only in this case can the dog be released and allowed to run around on its own.
The pet must feel that its owner loves and cares for it. It is necessary to evoke positive emotions in the dog and reinforce them by giving a treat after a successfully completed command. This is much more effective than any type of punishment. Giving love to your pet, the response from him, in the form of obedience, will not take long to arrive.
These tips should not be neglected; they have been tested by time and experienced dog breeders. Here's what you need to do to stop your dog from eating feces:
- If a bitch gives birth to puppies, it is imperative to ensure the cleanliness of the place where they live. Timely cleaning will help correct the mother's behavior, and she will not set an example for the puppies to eat their own feces.
- If the animal eats only dry food, you need to add meat, a complex of vitamins and minerals, and jelly complementary foods to the diet, but only after consulting with your veterinarian.
- The veterinarian should prescribe pancreatic enzymes for the dog, as well as probiotics, they perfectly help restore the intestinal microflora.
- A pet should not be bored; this has a detrimental effect on it. Boredom is one of the factors why animals eat excrement; they simply have nothing to do. The dog should have many different toys with which he will frolic and forget that he has not yet eaten feces.
- After consulting with a veterinarian, you can add substances to your dog’s food that will not harm him, but will greatly change the smell and taste of feces.
The most important factor is that during the training period the owner must be patient and show great love to the tailed friend, he will feel it. Under no circumstances should you raise your voice at a dog during the training period, poke it with its muzzle into a pile, or punish it in any way possible. This way the dog breeder will not find a common language with the pet. Dogs are smart animals and they have a good memory, next time without the owner noticing, he will simply eat a pile of excrement as quickly as possible so that it will not be noticed. In some cases, the blame for a dog eating feces falls entirely on the dog owner. You need to love, be attentive and patient, and then you will be able to wean your dog from such a bad and harmful habit.
“A cat is full of mystery, like an animal.
A dog is simple and naive, like a person.”
Karel Capek
A dog is man's most faithful, devoted friend. It is pleasant to walk along the alleys of the park, play, or jog with your four-legged pet. How much joy such communication brings! But sometimes dogs not only delight the owner, but also surprise him with unusual preferences. Some dogs willingly eat feces found on the street.
There is no limit to the owner's indignation! Everyone at home (including children) cuddles and cuddles with their beloved pet. What's happening? Why does a dog eat poop? What does this mean for an adult, a child and the dog itself?
Dangerous habit
The habit of eating feces is called “coprophagia” (“copros” means “feces” in Greek, and “phagia” means “to eat”). It has been noticed that coprophagia is more common in females and castrated males - they eat their own and other people’s excrement more often than other dogs.
According to statistics, 90% of domestic dogs occasionally eat feces, and 15% suffer from a bad habit regularly.
Addiction requires mandatory behavioral adjustment. But, before raising a tailed “gourmet”, you should find out the origins of this behavior. Why does a dog eat poop? What reasons lead to this?
Causes of bad habit
Dog handlers were unable to identify the exact culprits of canine coprophagy. But, after observing the tailed pets for a long time, we came to the conclusion: in most cases, the culprits of the addiction were factors of three main groups.
Natural causes
It is natural for a female dog to eat poop poop. For a dog mom, keeping the den clean is the most important thing. Looking at the mother, the puppies eagerly eat feces. Such childhood habits are normal in dogs up to 3 months of age.
In children, eating feces is associated with the development and maturation of the intestines. In this case, excrement helps form normal microflora and improve digestion (feces contain bacteria that promote the development of the gastrointestinal tract). With age, a bad habit goes away, but it can develop into an unpleasant habit.
Eating feces by adult dogs originates from instinctive habits. The ancestors of dogs - coyotes, wolves ate their own feces. For what? Feces helped the dog's ancestors not to die of hunger in bad years and threw enemies and hunters off the scent. Domesticated dogs are forced to eat feces by an instinctive sense of danger or lack of food.
This is interesting. Sniffing dog feces is not abnormal or behavioral behavior for dogs. What does this mean? The dog recognizes by the smell of excrement how long ago its brother passed here, whether it is a female or a male. Is the bitch in heat, is she ready for mating or is she already pregnant. The dog even understands the emotions of his fellow dog by the smell of dog feces.
Behavior problems
Are you raising your dog too strictly? Do you devote enough time to your pet? The dog, sad for the attention and care of its owner, begins to actively attract attention to itself. Heavy artillery is used - eating feces or placing “fragrant” heaps in the apartment.
The pet is so lacking in attention that he will perceive even punishment as care. Another version of events is also possible - the dog excitedly grabs feces and runs away from the indignant owner, perceiving this as a funny game. And the owner, rushing after him and swearing, unwittingly reinforces bad behavior.
There are some obedient dogs. To such an extent that, watching how a conscious owner carefully puts excrement into a bag, they themselves become saturated with consciousness. A well-mannered dog will not allow the owner to bother and they themselves begin to “clean up” the feces by eating them.
The owner himself sometimes provokes the development of addictions in the pet. By scolding a puppy and catching him eating feces, the owner on a subconscious level perpetuates fear in the dog. The pet establishes a clear relationship between a pile of feces and the subsequent scolding of its beloved owner.
Therefore, the dog, immensely adoring the owner, eats his own and other people’s excrement so that the owner does not swear and the dog does not experience stress once again.
This behavior is more often observed in miniature dogs, which often left piles in the house and missed the tray.
A bad habit can come from childhood. If a dog lived in a competitive environment as a puppy in a large community, he had to fight for food, taking food from his brothers. In the future, such a dog feverishly eats feces, equating it to food. This is the nature of a dog's character.
In this case, the blame falls on inept breeders who do not know the rules for housing and feeding pets. This happens more often in miniature dogs (breeders of small breeds are mostly non-professionals). Small dogs are easier and cheaper to breed than large breeds.
Let's pay attention to health
Wild relatives of dogs and cats must regularly eat cow feces to improve digestion (horse excrement, human and cat feces are also used). Feces contain a lot of useful enzymes that help digest heavy foods well, improving intestinal motility.
The following deficiencies in the dog’s diet contribute to the development of the problem:
Review your pet's diet and supplement the menu with the necessary micro- and macroelements, minerals and vitamins. Special nutritional supplements are sold in pet stores and veterinary pharmacies. Or switch your tailed pet to industrial (dry) food. It already contains all the necessary supplements for the healthy development of the dog.
Attention! The dog should be transferred from a natural diet to a dry diet gradually over 1-1.5 weeks. Use only Premium or Super Premium food.
Pathological health conditions of the tailed pet (this includes gastrointestinal diseases and disorders of the functioning of the pancreas) also contribute to the development of a bad habit. In this case, the food that enters the stomach is not completely digested and the dog does not feel full - in order to get enough food, it eats feces.
What to do? Go to the vet. The doctor will conduct the necessary tests, studies, make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan.
What should the owner do?
How to wean your faithful pet from a nasty addiction? A bad habit requires mandatory correction. How to deal with coprophagia? To bring a pet to reason, the owner needs to act on two fronts:
1. Identify and eliminate the cause:
- Review your dog's diet.
- Give your four-legged friend more attention and care.
- Get involved in dog training and proper upbringing.
- If there are health problems, treat your pet immediately (give the tablets prescribed by the veterinarian on time and carry out all prescribed procedures).
2. Stop punishment! Coprophagia must be eliminated using non-violent methods (it is useless to fight the instinct). There is a better way to get rid of a bad habit. If your dog is about to eat another portion of feces during a walk, proceed according to plan:
- Call your dog over.
- When the dog comes up, reward him with a treat.
- Switch your pet's attention to another entertainment (ball, stick, game, jogging).
Don't forget to take your dog's treats and favorite toys with you on walks. And don’t let the dog do his own thing, don’t leave him unattended! You will always have time to sit with your friends on the bench. And when walking with your pet, devote time to him.
Train your pet daily and teach it to perform the commands “Fu”, “Come to me”, “Sit”. Use a muzzle at first (when you let your dog go for a walk on his own, without a leash).
The most important thing for a dog is to feel the love and care of its owner. Positive emotions and reinforcement of training in the form of treats, games and attention from the owner will work much better than shouting, threats and severe punishments. By giving love, you will receive obedience in return!
The neighborhood of a dog and a cat in the same apartment can be quite peaceful, but it can also result in many problems. Many owners are interested in why dogs eat cat feces. Let's try to understand the reasons for this strange behavior.
Why do dogs eat excrement?
Dogs often eat not only cat feces, but also the feces of other animals, and even their own. This phenomenon is called "coprophagy" and is considered more normal behavior for an animal in the wild than not. However, the fact that a dog eats its own or someone else’s feces can signal to the owner that the animal lacks some vitamins and minerals, and he tries to compensate for this deficiency in such a not very pleasant way.
It is cat excrement that can attract a dog because it contains a fairly large amount of protein, which is practically absent in dog food. It is necessary to remember that excess proteins are harmful to the dog, and be sure to wean your pet from the bad habit.
Also, such behavior in an animal can develop as a reaction to your actions: if you scold a puppy for leaving piles in the house, he may decide that he needs to destroy “traces of the crime” in order to avoid punishment.
How to stop a dog from eating excrement?
If after this the dog continues to eat feces, use negative reinforcement: pick him up and stop all attempts to reach for someone else's feces. You can try to distract your pet with some kind of game or focus his attention on some command.
How to stop a dog from eating excrement?
(V. Gritsenko, S. Guryeva “A Dog’s Life in Questions and Answers”)
Oddly enough, but coprophagia (eating feces) is considered a natural element of behavior for dogs. Thus, the normal behavior of a bitch involves eating the feces of her cubs. The absence of this is considered pathology. By the way, this is why bitches more often suffer from this behavior. A puppy can learn to eat feces by imitating its mother. Some animal psychologists also believe that feces can remind a young dog of the first solid food he ate: warm, semi-solid, semi-digested. His mother regurgitated something similar to him upon returning from hunting. Coprophagia can also be a consequence of a dog’s lack of digestive enzymes, as well as low-quality food.
Probably for the same reasons, and more often from a lack of protein, B vitamins, vitamin K and minerals in the diet, and perhaps other substances not yet very well known to us, our dogs, like all predators, often eat feces other animals, or even your own. In case of nutritional deficiency, this makes sense, especially since, for example, the feces of farm animals contain from 10 to 20% protein (protein), 5% fat, 40% fiber, 35% soluble carbohydrates, from 35 to 55% body weight microorganisms. So before you punish your dog for these actions, think again about how well you are feeding him. The factor of learning in the development of coprophagy cannot be excluded. So, if you punish a puppy when returning home for making piles on the floor, he may understand that eliminating traces of the crime helps get rid of the punishment.
Thus, coprophagia is a complex problem, and it needs to be solved comprehensively. First, take your dog to the veterinarian. Rule out diseases that may be accompanied by this phenomenon. Check for worms, they also do not contribute to the absorption of food. Change your dog's feeding schedule. Feed her more often. Try including wholemeal brown bread, sauerkraut, animal kidneys, mineral supplements, B vitamins, and multivitamins. Uneviscerated fish often helps. The intestinal contents of fish replace to some extent the intestinal contents of mammals. Sometimes particularly naturalistic owners offer their dogs horse litter, which can be purchased at the city hippodrome. Increase the amount of protein in your diet.
If we talk about educational therapy, then, having noticed this behavior of the dog, start walking it on a leash. And remember, problems associated with changes in metabolism are corrected very slowly. If necessary, muzzle your dog.
Try changing your dog's ideas about going for a walk. Keep her occupied with games, physical exercises and training exercises. Don't give her any idle time.
Occupy the dog's mouth with a toy and strictly prohibit letting it out.
Provoke situations, i.e. find post-food piles and use the method of indicative inhibition - do everything to surprise the dog.
Use the negative reinforcement method. Without a dog, go along the route and thickly sprinkle the poop you find with red pepper, pour sauce or vinegar on it, place a couple of mousetraps on the approaches, but disguise them. If you are walking your dog on a leash, put on a thin choke and sharply pull the dog away from the piles, preventing any attempts to come into contact with them. You can use any preliminary command. But after this, be sure to praise the dog vigorously. To correct this behavior, it is a good idea to recommend an ultrasonic or electric shock collar.
If your dog eats his own poop, among other things, try to immediately attract his attention to you with a treat or toy. Or, after defecation, immediately restrain the dog with some command. Then approach her, praise her, and entice her away. If the dog<любит>immediately after she defecates, run away from her, of course attracting her attention to this event.
In this case, foreign dog experts recommend adding substances to the dog’s food that make the taste of feces unpleasant for the dog. For example, monosodium glutamate or pancreatic enzymes. They even invented a special remedy to combat coprophagia.<Форбид> (
If your dog is after your cat's poop, the first thing to do is place the litter box somewhere that the cat can easily get to but the dog can't get into. For example, behind a closet. Or place the cat's litter box in the toilet room, the door of which is kept on a chain, open so that the cat can pass through, but the dog cannot. Modify the cat tray into a box of a comfortable height for the cat and a small opening. Take courage and sprinkle the cat waste thickly with red pepper or something extremely bitter and unpleasant for the dog.