Why do some dogs like to eat frozen poop? I’ll confess my cocker spaniels, Buffy and Chipper, used to eat poop, and not just the frozen kind—sometimes fresh out of the oven!
I saw Chipper stand inches from Buffy’s butt while she stooped over, then he gobbled it up as soon as it hit the ground—yuck!
Poop eating (coprophagy) is not uncommon for dogs and neither is the special delight of poopsicles, buried and frozen under a fresh coating of snow. Google “poop eating” or even “poopsicles” and you’ll see that many have written into forums asking for help.
My elderly mom did not walk her dogs and she had a small lawn in her fenced yard. The poop piled up, especially in the winter when the yard was full of snow. She went out less often in the cold snowy weather.
No wonder these dogs ate poop.
- They were bored. My mom often put them outside for a half hour or more at a time. There wasn’t much for them to do in the small yard.
- Poop piled up in the backyard.
- The dogs were not walked, so they did all of their business in the yard.
- They ate a low quality dog food.
After my mom passed away, I inherited Buffy and Chipper (I guess I was their big sister). I did things differently than my mom and they rarely ate poopsicles—mostly because it wasn’t available.
How did I get my dogs to stop eating poop?
- Don’t give them the opportunity. I walk my dogs three to four times a day. It also helps them lose some weight and reduces boredom.
- Every morning I check my yard and clean up any poop. I have a big yard, but I don’t like to step on it, so I always check—even though I walk them.
- Don’t leave them outside alone.
- Feed them a high quality dog food.
- Teach your dog the “drop it” and “leave it” commands, which will help if they pick some up when you are watching
- Watch your dog and if they pick up something while on a walk, try to get it out of their mouth.
Occasionally, Buffy will still eat some poop, but it’s pretty rare and it’s more likely something she found while we were out for a walk.
Research shows…
An article in The Bark summarized an original research study called The paradox of canine conspecific coprophagy. This study had two surveys, one with 1,475 participants with coprophagic dogs and another with 1,552 returns comparing coprophagic dogs to normal dogs. Here are some of their findings:
- 16% of dogs in general are coprophagic (seen eating stools at least 6 times). While 23% ate stools at least once.
- Age, sex, neutering, diet, or ease of house training made no difference in whether a dog became coprophagic.
- Coprophagic dogs were greedy eaters.
- They were more likely to come from multi-dog families.
- Terriers and hounds were more likely to be coprophagic.
- Most dogs preferred to eat stools less than two days old (this may be due to fewer parasites).
- The success rate for food additives to prevent coprophagia was 0 – 2% of the 11 products tested.
I have never tried using any of the products for reducing poop-eating, but what has worked was making it less available.
Do your dogs eat poop? What do you do about it?
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Never think about “punishment”. Need to do hard work on teaching the commands “leave it” and “come”. Try to apply basic trick that’s all! Just doing this.
Just the other day, I confirmed that Lizzie is a poop eater. We’ve had some crazy weather here in Tucson. You know, rain. Plus we’ve been battling the flu, so poop pick up in our back yard has declined. Little Miss Lizziekins is a bark-eating enthusiast as well, so I’m regularly cleaning out her mouth. A day or two ago, I swept her mouth and found a small poop pellet. I’ve never caught her eating poops before because I think our walks and supervision keep that idiosyncrasy at bay. However, when we were house training her, she’d poop in the house. We’d come home to pellets rather than piles. My theory was that she was playing with/in/around (?) and potentially eating the poops. We will continue frequent walks and supervision so that maybe I will never discover another poop pellet in her mouth. Great post. I’m glad I’m not alone.
No, you are not alone!
After our Ginger had her leg amputated, Roxy started to eat only her poop, not her own or Rico’s. I read that it can happen in a pack when a senior dog is ill, to lessen predators realizing from the smell. I like to think she was trying to protect her big sister, and she hasn’t done it since we lost Ginge.
Wow, that’s interesting. I didn’t know eating poop had a protective quality. Thanks for sharing.
I am blessed I have never had a dog that did it but a friend of mine did and it was a constant battle with him especially in dog parks. Great post
Our dog doesn’t eat her own poop, but she likes to go diving in the cats’ litter box for some poop nuggets! We have the be diligent about keeping her out of the rooms where the litter boxes are. One of my dogs growing up at her own poop though. It sure was gross!
I had a dog that loved rabbit poop.
There is a bunch of reasons dogs might do that … it’s yucky but in general not harmful unless eating feces of other potentially ill dogs. Our guys were never into dog poop, their own or otherwise, but all of them love horse, bunny, deer and moose poop.
Dogs love to eat poop from herbivores. Apparently, it provides them with more nutrients.
My little Link likes to get into the cat box which I keep very clean but he will stalk the cats and notices it before I do sometimes! He may be bored due to the extreme cold here I admit I have not got him out to walk enough. We play several times a day for a long time so I don’t know if it is boredom or not but his diet is very high quality.
I think he is just a stinker -Link the stink lol
I will see if once it gets warmer and he is getting his walks more regularly if it stops.
I hope so!
Some dogs just love to eat poop.
I don’t usually eat poop, but once in a while I will just because I feel like it. Thanks for looking into it!
I admit – they do unless I’m there to say drop. They seem to only eat the poop that has carrots in it. Lucy, my pom who recently died – cam from a hoarding and cage situation. While I was unable to break this habit, I did get her to no longer spin circles.
I don’t have dogs and never did; only cats. Yikes. I didn’t know dogs ate their own poop until recently having a discussion with my husband about his childhood memories with dogs. I’m just glad to know there are easy solutions you can get through your vet or your cupboard to get them to stop this gross habit.
I’ll vote yucky! I’ve seen our dog eat another dog’s poo on two occasions. He’s a terrier mix, which is on your research list. So, there you go!
The only poop this dog ever ate was Goose Poop. We have a lot of Canada Geese here come spring. Sadly it nearly killed him. Goose poop often has salmonella. Luckily little Mr. seems to have learned his lesson and doesn’t even walk near them anymore. Phew!
There is a lot of goose poop around. I never thought about catching salmonella from it though. Thanks for the info.
So eating poo happens because they are bored and undernourished? That would make sense. This is a great and easy to read post for anyone with this kind of issue and I love thee bullet points not acres of text to wade through for help!
Yucky. My vote is for YUCKY, for sure. Of course, I’m a cat, and cats in general don’t do that. Sometimes we’ll sniff a fur-sib’s bum but that’s about it. MOUSES!
When Magic was a pup, he’d bring his own inside and PLAY with it! Maturity (and making it unavailable) worked for us.
I have heard that this behavior is more common when you have 2 or more dogs. I wonder if this is a manifestation of dominance/competitiveness between the dogs. From my experience, I have only had one dog at a time and have never seen this behavior (thank goodness!).
Buffy still will occasionally eat poop even though she is now an only dog. She doesn’t eat her own but finds it sometimes while on a walk.