Poop Eating Puppy!

Thats not good at all Hmmm ... I don't know what you can do apart from clean it up before she has a chance to get to it and also you will probably have to wait until he/she is fully trained.

Princess - you should not feed a dog "all the time". A small meal in the morning and a dinner at night is plenty.

Dogs eat poop because they smell the remains of their food in it. Your dog should be taught to go poop after she eats. You should take her out and watch her. If she tries to eat it tell her "no" in a sharp voice (no hitting) and pick up the poop in a plastic bag. Never leave poop where she can get it. It is up to you to stop this behavior. You have to supervise her more. Get a good book on dog training. I suggest "Mother Knows Best" or books by the Monks of Skete. Check for them used on Amazon or go to your local library.

Whoa! I've never heard of a poop-eating dog until today!

i have heard of it. our dog actually ate the kitty litter when we babysat a cat, not the poop just the litter. weird...

Dr. Coren had a good episode of his program on dog training on this subject.

Will try to pull some resources for you.

It's not unusual, and there are some diet/additive/training options to consider.

It is a very common puppy problem. You can buy stuff to make her stop at your local pet store.

small rodents do that same behavior when they are vitamin deficient. They eat thier droppings to replace what they are not getting from thier diets and replace what they are loosing..

is this the same for dogs?
has this dog been to the vet about this?

Puppies and even older dogs will eat their poop and it really is not that uncommon. As Bella Dea suggested, a good Pet Supply Store should have some good choices of remedies for this. It usually only takes a day or three to rid them of the habit. The powder formulation I am thinking of (but of course, forget then name of!) can just be sprinkled on their food for one or two days and that usually takes care of it.

The key of course, is breaking the habit while they are still young. And it IS a habit more than anything else. Older dogs can still be broken of the habit but sometimes their training takes a bit more diligence and effort.

I just read "The Fourth Hand," by John Irving. There was a poop-eating dog in that book.

Weird coincidence, huh?

A-yup. One of our pups did this. (She was an early spay, early spays are subject to varying degrees of incontinence, maybe explains why she's never really learned to know when she's about to poop until it's falling out, made potty training hell and gave her plenty of access to crap in unsupervised moments.) Was very enthusiastic about it, in fact, and on at least one occasion presented a friend of mine with a turd the way another puppy might offer a ball or a stick as a show of affection and good faith...

Anyway, she got over it, with training and patience and occasionally very, very nasty breath. Pet store stuff (and MSG, which was also recommended) didn't deter her. Hell, she eats cardboard. Time (and a clean environment) have taken care of it.

My golden retriever did this when she was a puppy. Our vet told us to feed her a couple pineapple chuncks in juice, not syrup. He said she'd love the taste and scarf it down, but wouldn't like the smell of it on the other end and would break her of the habit.

It worked.

http://www.somatv.com/gooddog-desc.php

Episode 113. Worth watching if you can find a local channel broadcasting Good Dog.

One of the things that Dr. Coren talked about was that the quality of what you are feeding the dog can effect this problem. Sometimes dogs can't digest all the nutrients on the first go-through, so they're attracted to the left-over good stuff in the feces. Has the vet recommended a particular diet for your dog?