Bandit (8 month-ish male rescue black lab pup). Been with me all of 48 hrs. So it's very early days. But it happened once yesterday when out for a walk, and then again today. Stopped to poop, then when he'd finished, turned around and started to try and eat his poop. Both times I was quick enough to move him away, hand the leash to my 11 year old, and then go and scoop and dispose in a poop bin. Interestingly, we've walked past a few unscooped poops from other dogs and he's shown little to no interest.. I have a few questions: 1. Could this be a behaviour adopted from a situation where he's been abandoned and left in unsanitary conditions, poop not cleared up, and not enough food ... hence going after anything remotely tasty / nutritious? 2. My assumption is that this will happen again. I've read the articles on why some dogs do this, and what action to take, and I'm planning to adopt the strategy of v special treat plus special word to distract him, but I'm wondering whether I should I be admonishing as well as distracting when I call him off, or whether the distract and high value treat should be enough? Not out of love with him yet - I expected some problem behaviours, if I'd been abandoned in my early teens I'd have some pretty awful behaviours - but I do want to get this knocked on the head as it's really not nice.
Lure him away with a very tasty treat, the moment he’s finished. No telling off, it doesn’t work and will stop him pooing in your presence. Many dogs eat their own poo. Keir does and he had the best start in life you can imagine. He’s at the stage now where he will poo and come to me for his treat without turning to look at the poo, even when I’m a distance away, but this has taken six months of training. He’ll still eat it if I’m not there. Here is a good article - https://www.thelabradorsite.com/why-dogs-eat-poop-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/ .
I agree with what Mags has said. Just a quick note as this is the second time you've mentioned telling off for behaviours - I know you're not doing this, which is great, and it's useful to have your thought processes, so PLEASE keep going with that, but I just wanted to say that the answer is never going to be to tell your dog off. In all cases, he's doing what he thinks is right for whatever reason and telling him off just makes you seem unpredictable and unpleasant. He won't associate your telling off with the "bad" behaviour, so it's unproductive at best and damaging at worst - in this case, as Mags said, it could stop him wanting to poo or eat in your presence at all. We're constantly looking for ways to get our dogs to give us behaviours that we do like and stop doing behaviours that we don't, but we have to get ourselves out of the mindset of "my dog is doing something bad". Nope, he's doing something that is good - for him. If it doesn't tally with what we want our dogs to do, then that's our bad; we're making him fit into our lives not the other way around, so it's our responsibility to kindly teach him another way. That's half the fun - and the frustration - of dog training Good luck and do keep posting; it helps the whole community to know other people are going through similar struggles. PS more photos please
Thank you so much for this. I've read the article, twice now, yesterday and today. Already stocked up on some yummy treats...just wondered whether he needed telling off as well (silly, I'm a big advocate of positive reinforcement rather than telling off anyway). I guess it is largely irrelevant *why* he does it; the fix is more important, since I couldn't change his past anyway even if I did know everything that has happened to him. Roll on the distraction technique... even if it does take 6 months...
Hi @Nowheregirl , hello from myself and Cassie, aged 19 months. She's an own poo eater, and I 've had from 8 weeks, it remains an issue to be sorted! I agree it isn't very nice and can be problematic when other people are involved in her care. I've recently changed her food, for several reasons, and hoped it would help. I'm currently going down the distraction and reward route, and will start "magic word" I think when I have a good stock of sardines! The distraction/reward is starting to work though. It's best not to enter into a race to get there before her, as it then makes it more desirable. Sometimes I tell myself she's just a dog, doing what seems good to her, and then I tell myself, well she's saving me the job of picking it up. I love her dearly regardless, she's coming on so well in other ways. It's lovely read about Bandit, sounds like he's struck lucky coming to live with you
If you train with a positive reward based method you have no need to tell off a dog. A dog doesn't have 'bad behaviour' it just has behaviour, and a dog will do what he/she finds rewarding. It is us humans that apply the term 'bad' to anything we don't like.
Hi, Reasons why dogs eat poop on this video: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155806606807748&id=113688237747 Maybe it can help.
Being strict about picking up really helped with my SILs dog. If we leave her to her own devices and don' pick up, she will revert to poo eating. She has got hugely better with age and positive train ing though.
I was told you should make your dogs food more desirable so they are satisfied with that and dont have to go looking for something else elsewhere. So if you are feeding kibble atm try adding in a meal of wet food, or mixing the two together as this will smell and taste stronger and more interesting. Also make sure it is a high quality food as if their food has not been properly digested their poo may smell like their food, even still have whole bits in it, and they will think they can eat it! Not sure if any of this works by worth a try!
