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  1. #1
    House Broken Jdog's Avatar
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    Need help with Lab eating other dogs stool, serous problem

    Lacy....for some reason is infatuated with Abby's stool. If I don't watch her, she will eat it, almost once a day. It's been on and off since she was 10 months old.

    I have tried the black pepper, sure it works, but who has time to go chasing their dogs stool to pour hot sauce on it, or whatever. I need REAL ADVICE from someone that is dealing or has dealt with this.

    The vet says "well, you know, could be the supplements you are giving Abby". A RESOUNDING NO. A field/food test of this was done for 5 months, still same results.

    Called again " flush out any worms with 4 packets over 3 days for worms on her food". Still eating stool, or when I can catch her and Say NO, which is rare, I really just don't know what to do.

    It's almost like she is trying to "sneak" as she looks around. Thank God Abby doesn't do this, but they both eat grass out of bordome. Eating stool is nasty, and it's got to be stopped.

    With the skin rashes and "lick", that healed up due to her cone collar, and antibiotics, but what's next? Ready to de-crate her, take her cone collar off, but I just can't trust her own well being. Help.

    Are there medications? Supplements?
    Last edited by Jdog; 11-02-2017 at 11:57 PM. Reason: add

  2. #2
    Senior Dog Black Labbies's Avatar
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    Hi,
    We've had many poop-eaters in the past and present and always tried to deter this gross habit, but not any more. As long as you know your dogs' poops are clean and parasite free, don't worry about it. Just don't let her lick you for a long while, lol. It's also a alpha/beta dog thing that is hard to break.

    Last year I personally learned about FMT for humans and dogs. Gross but true and amazingly it works.

    Fecal Transplant: An Amazing Cure You've Probably Never Heard Of


    Healing Your Pet with a Fecal Microbiota Transplant AnimalBiome

  3. #3
    Senior Dog
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    We had Kiku (female Akita), Brutus (yellow boy), and Hershey (chocolate male pup). We needed a friend for Hershey since Brutus' health started going downhill fast because he wanted to keep up with Hershey. So we rehomed Honey...female yellow about 4 months old. She had horrible habits...I knew the reason the family was "letting her go" wasn't because any of their kids was allergic, as they stated. (all 4 were playing with the little monster when we got to their house...no one was sneezing, etc.) One of those habits was eating her own poop. When we finally got her papers, it was obvious that she'd been from an Amish puppy litter and that may have been why she pooped on her bedding. Their bedding. Oh well...Hershey and both older dogs liked her and that was what mattered.

    Honey taught Hershey the joys of poop eating...their own, each other's, and that of the older dogs. Never any poop out on our walks, though, thank goodness for little mercies.

    We tried everything ever suggested to us....stuff in their food, stuff put on the poop....nothing made any (!!!) difference. Some of the products made the older dogs sick/not want to eat...one of the things to add to food contained pepper. NOT A GOOD IDEA.

    The only thing that ever worked was to follow the danged dogs in the yard and pick up immediately. That wasn't always successful, either, since I'd be following one dog and the other would go off and consume. My husband was worthless with this. After a while, Hershey would hide his poops for later. Honey also developed the habit of sitting and waiting as someone's poop would emerge and eat before it hit the ground. Yeah...life was lovely in this respect. I let one dog out into the yard at a time...the only absolute solution as long as there was only one dog in the yard. Anytime I figured everyone was emptied out and let multiple dogs out, someone would surprise me. As Hershey aged, he stopped doing this...he died at 10 1/2 and probably stopped around 10. Honey never stopped eating her own (she died after Hersh). All in all, we put up with this for 11 years.

    The dogs were healthy. No parasites. No nutritional issues causing the urge. It didn't even give Hershey diarrhea afterwards...but it sure messed up Honey's intestinal tract. Sometimes that was the only way we knew she'd been successful in finding some treasure.

    Good luck. What you need to do is take the time to pick up after both dogs immediately or just put up with the problem as Black Labbies suggests. REAL ADVICE.

  4. #4
    Senior Dog Tanya's Avatar
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    Rocky is a poop addict. He is HORRIBLE. the kicker is it didn't start until he was like 4 years old.

    Honestly - I just clean right away. My dog(s) almost always poop on walks (we walk morning and evening for their "business") and are not outside unsupervised much at all so I am right there. It is a bit of a joke that when one dog poops you need to race Rocky to it to pick it up first

    The issue is it is automatically highly rewarding when they eat it. And it becomes a game of sneaking it. So it is a hard one to train as you need a reward that is HIGHER value and a way to ensure they can't sneak a taste of the poop before getting the reward. For those that say to use punishment in such a case, I tried that many years ago and all that did was RUIN his recall and it impacted our relationship negatively (this was at dog parks). It was also very hard to tell if he was grabbing a stick/leaf/dirty ball or grabbing poop from the other end of the park to correct via e-collar (yes, I even tried that briefly but quickly realized it was NOT going to work). I tried a muzzle and he'd push it into the poop to eat some and then rub the muzzle on the people at the park SO...we had to put a stop to that one right away haha

    For training i'd work very hard to keep the yard clean so they don't get to practice for many months and work on the most amazing "leave it" (start small, work up, make it something you HIGHLY reward - i mean you need to pull out the world's best reward if you go this route).

    In the end with Rocky I just had to get over it when he did get some and use management. He wasn't off leash much as dog parks and trails are FULL of poop. And keep the yard clean. He still sometimes snags a piece of poop off the sidewalk (or just next to sidewalk) now and then. SIgh.

  5. #5
    Senior Dog smartrock's Avatar
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    My current pup will eat poop. She was bad about eating her brother's poop but not her own. She also loves to find some good deer poop or whatever when we're on walks, but so did Chase so they were always on lead and got a lot of "leave it!" She actually seemed to like the taste of hot sauce or sriracha, so that didn't help. So yeah, we don't encourage her to lick our faces.

    I had to go outside in the yard with both my dogs and pick up Chase's as soon as he went. She didn't try to eat his poop if we were on a walk, only if she found it in the yard. And when she saw him pooping, she'd head toward him, hoping to get to it before I did. The only thing that worked was picking it up immediately. Chase died this summer and I was actually just thinking yesterday what a relief it is to not have to follow Chase around to pick up his poops as soon as they occurred. I know it's not what you want to hear.

    And yes, my neighbors often had the opportunity to see me dashing through the yard in my pajamas, yelling at Lark to "leave it". No negligees for this girl!
    Last edited by smartrock; 11-03-2017 at 08:13 AM.

  6. #6
    Senior Dog Snowshoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Black Labbies View Post
    Hi,
    We've had many poop-eaters in the past and present and always tried to deter this gross habit, but not any more. As long as you know your dogs' poops are clean and parasite free, don't worry about it. Just don't let her lick you for a long while, lol. It's also a alpha/beta dog thing that is hard to break.

    Last year I personally learned about FMT for humans and dogs. Gross but true and amazingly it works.

    Fecal Transplant: An Amazing Cure You've Probably Never Heard Of


    Healing Your Pet with a Fecal Microbiota Transplant AnimalBiome
    Wow, I'd not heard of faecal transplant for poop eating. Methinks that must be a shot in the dark. But Oban did have it for his Lymphangiectasia and it's considered a a prime factor in his return to health. OP, if you consider this, it's not that big a deal but did take anaesthesia for gastro and end0 scopes and then again for the actual transplant. Maybe the scopes would not be needed for poop eating?
    Hidden Content

    Castilleja's Dubhgall Oban, the Black Stranger of The Little Bay
    Oct. 15, 2007 - June 13, 2021
    Oxtongue Rapids Park. Oct. 2019 Hidden Content

  7. #7
    Senior Dog
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    Mine have all been poop eaters - some more frequently than others, but I’ve caught them all doing it at one point or another. Usually only each others, not strange ones we encounter on walks, thankfully. Mostly we try to keep the yard clean and if we fail, then we look the other way and don’t allow “kisses” for a while.
    Annette

    Cookie (HIT HC Jamrah's Legally Blonde, UDX, OM2, BN) 6/4/2015
    Sassy (HIT Jamrah's Blonde Ambition, UDX, OM2, BN) 6/4/2015

    Chloe (HIT HC OTCH Windsong's Femme Fatale, UDX4, OM6, RE) 6/7/2009

    And remembering:

    Scully (HC Coventry's Truth Is Out There, UD, TD, RN) 4/14/1996 - 6/30/2011
    Mulder (Coventry's I Want To Believe, UD, RN, WC) 5/26/1999 - 4/22/2015

    And our foster Jolie (Windsong's Genuine Risk, CDX) 5/26/1999 - 3/16/2014

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  8. #8
    Senior Dog Black Labbies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Snowshoe View Post
    Wow, I'd not heard of faecal transplant for poop eating. Methinks that must be a shot in the dark.
    No, lol, not for poop-eaters, just to show that eating/ingesting poop isn't as gross as we think it is. Our vet has a poop-bank for pets who need the good intestinal bacteria/flora for certain diseases.

  9. #9
    Best Friend Retriever ronmcq's Avatar
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    My last senior Mia, ate cat and coyote poop all her 14 years. I never could get her to stop other than telling her to 'leave it' if I was the fist to spot it on the trails. Thank goodness Buddy has shown no interest in scat other than a quick sniff and a leg lift. Good luck with your pup.

  10. #10
    Senior Dog Snowshoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Black Labbies View Post
    No, lol, not for poop-eaters, just to show that eating/ingesting poop isn't as gross as we think it is. Our vet has a poop-bank for pets who need the good intestinal bacteria/flora for certain diseases.
    LOL, your first link says Dr. Roman HAS used it for poop eating.

    • Dr. Roman has used fecal transplants to successfully treat dogs and cats with a wide variety of conditions, including severe gastrointestinal disease, behavioral issues, atopic dermatitis, and coprophagia (poop eating)
    Hidden Content

    Castilleja's Dubhgall Oban, the Black Stranger of The Little Bay
    Oct. 15, 2007 - June 13, 2021
    Oxtongue Rapids Park. Oct. 2019 Hidden Content

 



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