June 13, 2023 • 11 mins
If your dog goes outside to to their "business" and then eats it, they might be suffering from Coprophasia. The Dog Professor, Robb Lust from the Edgefield Animal Care Center address the problem and the many reason and ways there are to curb it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Do you what I mean? Studiotoday is the dog professor Rob Luss from
the edge Field to Animal Care Center. Rob, how you doing, buddy,
good? Good good. We gotsome non typical summer weather right now.
It's kind of chilly, kind ofrainy. Yeah, it feels like
I should be watching football. Well, you know, I thought of that
this morning when I'm stepping out thismorning, and I'm like, yeah,
it feels like fall and so yeah, so far we've had a very odd
(00:23):
spring. But but we definitely doneed some of the rain and we need
to to be able to hang ontosome of that some of that liquid in
the ground a little bit. Withthat being said, dogs are going to
be out running around doing their thing, and some dogs have a little issue
with, uh, with eating theirpoop. And that's something you wanted to
talk about because it is probably waymore of a common issue than than most
(00:47):
pet owners know. They're probably like, yeah, my dog's the only one
that does that. No, notat all. Short of jumping on people
or biting people. This is oneof the biggest, most noticeable behaviors that
people have problems with. I getit, I get it, and for
obvious reasons, go out in theyard and come back in and give you
a kiss and that type of thing, you know, and yeah, holy
magrel. But um, it's veryvery common. Studies have shown poop eating,
(01:12):
or what's commonly known as coprophasia,is actually the conditioned name is somewhat
genetic. In the wild, animalsare used to scrounging for every possible nutrient
or food that they can, soit's not uncommon for different animals in the
(01:34):
wild to basically eat their poop toextract any possible leftover nutrition that can can
come out of that. In fact, rabbits are a species that if they
don't get a chance to eat theirpoop, you know, when you find
the little cocoa puffs in the yard, that's actually actually the secondary stool that's
(01:56):
already been recycled through the rabbit againreally out um, because that's a normal
process in their digestive system to dothat. UM. And if they if
you have a pet rabbit and sometimesthey don't have access to that ability to
um basically recycle their poop, um, they don't do as well help wise
as as they would if they did, which is a very strange strange that
(02:22):
I was about, not normal forhuman forty when I when I heard that,
and I didn't know that, Butyeah, that's a that's a normal
thing. So basically it's a geneticpredisposition in a lot of animals, not
just dogs. Uh, it's verynoticeable in dogs because we're around them a
lot more than the other wild animals. So it is a common condition.
(02:42):
Um. They've done studies on it. Um. Some of the numbers I'm
going to give you here are fromcertain studies And basically there's um a lot
of different reasons that it occurs.Um. But it's pretty common in multi
dog households more than it is insingle dog households because that dogs get in
(03:05):
a little pac mentality some dogs,you know, you find in a litter,
you get a pup that comes froma big litter of other pups.
They start to realize that, youknow, they don't might not have access
to the food as much as therest of the litter they've lived in this
litter, so they look for othersources to satisfy it. It usually ends
(03:28):
up becoming the behavior of starting toeat the eat the poop from the rest
of the pack and stuff like that. So it's it's much more common in
multi dog households that it is insingle dog households, And a lot of
times it's not the dog eating itsown poop, it's the dog eating the
other dog's poop. Okay, sothat's the thing. Number of reasons why
(03:50):
it could be happening. Your dogcould have parasites. Parasites that basically increase
the need for your dog to findthings to eat, which would be like
tape worms or other types of worms, round worms, anything like that,
anything that increase if your dogs appetite, they start looking around for those things.
And on that same token, theycould be on a medication like steroids,
(04:13):
you know, when you're you know, if your dogs on a steroid
medication, that tends to increase theappetite also, so they're more likely to
go around looking for other things toeat. And if poop is what's left
the poop, poop, it isum. They could have a malabsorption issue.
Malabsorption is the idea of how theirbody uses the nutrients within their food
(04:35):
or their diet. Maybe there's apredisposition in their body. Their body's not
using the food correctly or extracting onthe enzymes correctly from the food that they're
getting or maybe their diet is lackingin those enzymes. So that's a lot
of time will drive your dog tofind ways naturally in their brain to fill
(05:00):
those holes, and that's that's wherethey start going around with the comprofastion everything.
Um. So that's a pretty Imean, there's a whole list of
why it occurs. Um. There'sreally a few ways to work on solving
it. But because there's multiple reasonswhy it occurs, there's also multiple ways
you got to try to solve it, right, Um, easiest way out
(05:23):
there, and I want I telleverybody just pick up the poop, right,
Okay, Yeah, it's not It'snot as easy as as it sounds.
And everybody, every dog owner,especially multiple dog owners, know that.
Um. But that is the onlysurefire way to keep it from from
happening. In cases like that,there are supplements, um that can be
(05:43):
given to your dog. First thingis, if it is a constant problem,
you want to talk to your veterinarianabout it first, just like anything
else. Because you can go onlineor or go to the store and you
see ten different things for poop eatingon the shelf or whatever, and it's
like, well, I gave himthis. This isn't working. Why isn't
just work? Talk to your veterinarianfirst. Okay, the first thing they'll
(06:04):
probably do is they'll take a sampleof the stool which either your dog is
eating or your dog's stool. Realizethat if it's a multi dog household,
a lot of times, if you'reusing something that is meant as a deterrent,
which is very common, it's asupplement that you give to the dogs
(06:26):
that are creating the poop that you'rethe one dog is eating or whatever.
All dogs in the household will begiven this and it basically adds different things
to their diet that supposedly makes thepoop taste worse than what it is,
Like capsican like which is used inpepper spray. That's one of the things
that they use in these type ofproducts. But there's also other supplements as
(06:49):
far as if you're dealing with anenzyme issue or a vitamin issue. You
know, some doctors think poop eatingis linked to a vitamin B deficiency,
whether it be in the diet orthe or in the dog's absorption issues or
whatever. Um So they may prescribesomething in the vitamin department. Some think
it's a enzyme issue. Okay,UM, A lot of dogs in their
(07:13):
diets are lacking in a certain enzyme, so they'll they'll prescribe something UM with
the enzyme. It's pain, iswhat it is, Papa, I n
Um. I probably just screwed that. That's annunciation up. But I'd never
heard it, so probably no oneelse is earlier. But but that's that's
a certain enzyme that is sometimes lackingin situations where dogs are eating poop or
(07:38):
suffering from coprophasia. UM. Sothat might be something that gets added to
the diet. But UM, nobodyreally knows. I mean, at the
end of the day. The easiestway to help work with that problem is
UM. Talk to your veterinarian ummake sure that you're cleaning up. And
cleaning up is important because obviously cleaningup is um helps to prevent with them
(08:01):
spread of the diseases and other parasites. The one big problem is if it
is when dogs eat dog poop,they tend to want to eat other poop.
Okay, if you have wild animalsin your yard like I do,
I have deer, rabbits, chickens, they're not wild, but there ours.
But but everything poops right, anddogs that have that tendency to eat,
eat, eat the dog poop wantto move to everything else and in
(08:24):
their world, those are the lottaste, your type of treat. So
you have to always kind of bevigilant in cases like that because other animal
poop is very very um. Thechances of catching a parasite or um something
like that are much much greatly increasedwhen they're out there eating uh, you
(08:46):
know, wild wild animal poop,rabbit, especially bird poop um. They're
they're big carriers of cocidia and andthings like that. So it's important to
get that behavior under control as muchas you can so clean it up.
If you have a dog that hasan issue with it, it might be
that we go out and walk ona leash so that when they are in
the action, in the moment inthe they make the decision to reach down
(09:09):
and start to eat poop, you'rethere to correct it right away so they
know it's a problem. But that'sa or we talked to our vet and
talk to them about certain supplements andeverything else, and that's another way to
attack it. So it's a multiprongedproblem. It's a multi pronged solution.
So if you don't know where tostart, talk to your veterinarian and they'll
(09:31):
get you started. That sounds likea really tough issue to get passed and
get through. It's genetic, justlike anything else, you know, just
like training wise we've talked about.There's there's some genetic tendencies that all dogs
have, and some dogs have thema little stronger than others. It's what
makes it's the whole reasoning behind allthe different dog breeds is because we take
different traits from the breeds that welike or what they're or what helps them
(09:56):
do the job that we want themto do, and then we accentuate that
stuff that's genetically linked. This isalso a behavior that's genetically linked, So
it's not something that you just erase. It's something that in certain dogs,
with certain extreme cases of it,you have to kind of work with and
live with. And another thing isit's obviously abnormal to humans, but more
(10:18):
normal to dogs, canines, whatever. So we have a tough time getting
through that because it's so abnormal toright right right in their world, it's
it's business as usual, right,It's just accentuated a lot in multi dog
households or dogs that are isolated alot. You know, if a dog
is chained to a dog box orspends the whole day in the basement and
(10:41):
ends up pooping in there, andthat becomes an issue and the first thing
that comes. I want to behaviorwise too. Some dogs will actually eat
it to try to hide it becausethey know if they do it, And
when you walk in the door yesterdayyou were mad as heck for some reason,
so they'll they'll do the same thing. It's going, well, you're
probably going to be mad at againtoday, so let's try to work around
(11:01):
and clean clean up my area thatI'm living in. So get that attention
that they're looking for. What iffolks are interested in talking to the veterinarians
about this problem, maybe looking atyou guys at training or boarding or whatever,
how do they do that? TheEdgefield Animal Care Centers in Central Ohio
where a full service animal care facility, veterinary hospital, boarding, grooming,
(11:22):
training, all of that everything youneed. You can get all our information,
our phone numbers, our emails,everything you need to contact us,
everything you need to find out aboutus, and all the back issues of
The Dog Professor podcast You can findall that on our website at Edgefield Animalcare
dot com. Some great stuff.This is the Dog Professor podcast. If
(11:43):
you're just finding it, make sureyou hit follow where you're finding this podcast,
because every time we post a newone, you'll get a notification right
on your phone
Do you what I mean? Studiotoday is the dog professor Rob Luss from
the edge Field to Animal Care Center. Rob, how you doing, buddy,
good? Good good. We gotsome non typical summer weather right now.
It's kind of chilly, kind ofrainy. Yeah, it feels like
I should be watching football. Well, you know, I thought of that
this morning when I'm stepping out thismorning, and I'm like, yeah,
it feels like fall and so yeah, so far we've had a very odd
(00:23):
spring. But but we definitely doneed some of the rain and we need
to to be able to hang ontosome of that some of that liquid in
the ground a little bit. Withthat being said, dogs are going to
be out running around doing their thing, and some dogs have a little issue
with, uh, with eating theirpoop. And that's something you wanted to
talk about because it is probably waymore of a common issue than than most
(00:47):
pet owners know. They're probably like, yeah, my dog's the only one
that does that. No, notat all. Short of jumping on people
or biting people. This is oneof the biggest, most noticeable behaviors that
people have problems with. I getit, I get it, and for
obvious reasons, go out in theyard and come back in and give you
a kiss and that type of thing, you know, and yeah, holy
magrel. But um, it's veryvery common. Studies have shown poop eating,
(01:12):
or what's commonly known as coprophasia,is actually the conditioned name is somewhat
genetic. In the wild, animalsare used to scrounging for every possible nutrient
or food that they can, soit's not uncommon for different animals in the
(01:34):
wild to basically eat their poop toextract any possible leftover nutrition that can can
come out of that. In fact, rabbits are a species that if they
don't get a chance to eat theirpoop, you know, when you find
the little cocoa puffs in the yard, that's actually actually the secondary stool that's
(01:56):
already been recycled through the rabbit againreally out um, because that's a normal
process in their digestive system to dothat. UM. And if they if
you have a pet rabbit and sometimesthey don't have access to that ability to
um basically recycle their poop, um, they don't do as well help wise
as as they would if they did, which is a very strange strange that
(02:22):
I was about, not normal forhuman forty when I when I heard that,
and I didn't know that, Butyeah, that's a that's a normal
thing. So basically it's a geneticpredisposition in a lot of animals, not
just dogs. Uh, it's verynoticeable in dogs because we're around them a
lot more than the other wild animals. So it is a common condition.
(02:42):
Um. They've done studies on it. Um. Some of the numbers I'm
going to give you here are fromcertain studies And basically there's um a lot
of different reasons that it occurs.Um. But it's pretty common in multi
dog households more than it is insingle dog households because that dogs get in
(03:05):
a little pac mentality some dogs,you know, you find in a litter,
you get a pup that comes froma big litter of other pups.
They start to realize that, youknow, they don't might not have access
to the food as much as therest of the litter they've lived in this
litter, so they look for othersources to satisfy it. It usually ends
(03:28):
up becoming the behavior of starting toeat the eat the poop from the rest
of the pack and stuff like that. So it's it's much more common in
multi dog households that it is insingle dog households, And a lot of
times it's not the dog eating itsown poop, it's the dog eating the
other dog's poop. Okay, sothat's the thing. Number of reasons why
(03:50):
it could be happening. Your dogcould have parasites. Parasites that basically increase
the need for your dog to findthings to eat, which would be like
tape worms or other types of worms, round worms, anything like that,
anything that increase if your dogs appetite, they start looking around for those things.
And on that same token, theycould be on a medication like steroids,
(04:13):
you know, when you're you know, if your dogs on a steroid
medication, that tends to increase theappetite also, so they're more likely to
go around looking for other things toeat. And if poop is what's left
the poop, poop, it isum. They could have a malabsorption issue.
Malabsorption is the idea of how theirbody uses the nutrients within their food
(04:35):
or their diet. Maybe there's apredisposition in their body. Their body's not
using the food correctly or extracting onthe enzymes correctly from the food that they're
getting or maybe their diet is lackingin those enzymes. So that's a lot
of time will drive your dog tofind ways naturally in their brain to fill
(05:00):
those holes, and that's that's wherethey start going around with the comprofastion everything.
Um. So that's a pretty Imean, there's a whole list of
why it occurs. Um. There'sreally a few ways to work on solving
it. But because there's multiple reasonswhy it occurs, there's also multiple ways
you got to try to solve it, right, Um, easiest way out
(05:23):
there, and I want I telleverybody just pick up the poop, right,
Okay, Yeah, it's not It'snot as easy as as it sounds.
And everybody, every dog owner,especially multiple dog owners, know that.
Um. But that is the onlysurefire way to keep it from from
happening. In cases like that,there are supplements, um that can be
(05:43):
given to your dog. First thingis, if it is a constant problem,
you want to talk to your veterinarianabout it first, just like anything
else. Because you can go onlineor or go to the store and you
see ten different things for poop eatingon the shelf or whatever, and it's
like, well, I gave himthis. This isn't working. Why isn't
just work? Talk to your veterinarianfirst. Okay, the first thing they'll
(06:04):
probably do is they'll take a sampleof the stool which either your dog is
eating or your dog's stool. Realizethat if it's a multi dog household,
a lot of times, if you'reusing something that is meant as a deterrent,
which is very common, it's asupplement that you give to the dogs
(06:26):
that are creating the poop that you'rethe one dog is eating or whatever.
All dogs in the household will begiven this and it basically adds different things
to their diet that supposedly makes thepoop taste worse than what it is,
Like capsican like which is used inpepper spray. That's one of the things
that they use in these type ofproducts. But there's also other supplements as
(06:49):
far as if you're dealing with anenzyme issue or a vitamin issue. You
know, some doctors think poop eatingis linked to a vitamin B deficiency,
whether it be in the diet orthe or in the dog's absorption issues or
whatever. Um So they may prescribesomething in the vitamin department. Some think
it's a enzyme issue. Okay,UM, A lot of dogs in their
(07:13):
diets are lacking in a certain enzyme, so they'll they'll prescribe something UM with
the enzyme. It's pain, iswhat it is, Papa, I n
Um. I probably just screwed that. That's annunciation up. But I'd never
heard it, so probably no oneelse is earlier. But but that's that's
a certain enzyme that is sometimes lackingin situations where dogs are eating poop or
(07:38):
suffering from coprophasia. UM. Sothat might be something that gets added to
the diet. But UM, nobodyreally knows. I mean, at the
end of the day. The easiestway to help work with that problem is
UM. Talk to your veterinarian ummake sure that you're cleaning up. And
cleaning up is important because obviously cleaningup is um helps to prevent with them
(08:01):
spread of the diseases and other parasites. The one big problem is if it
is when dogs eat dog poop,they tend to want to eat other poop.
Okay, if you have wild animalsin your yard like I do,
I have deer, rabbits, chickens, they're not wild, but there ours.
But but everything poops right, anddogs that have that tendency to eat,
eat, eat the dog poop wantto move to everything else and in
(08:24):
their world, those are the lottaste, your type of treat. So
you have to always kind of bevigilant in cases like that because other animal
poop is very very um. Thechances of catching a parasite or um something
like that are much much greatly increasedwhen they're out there eating uh, you
(08:46):
know, wild wild animal poop,rabbit, especially bird poop um. They're
they're big carriers of cocidia and andthings like that. So it's important to
get that behavior under control as muchas you can so clean it up.
If you have a dog that hasan issue with it, it might be
that we go out and walk ona leash so that when they are in
the action, in the moment inthe they make the decision to reach down
(09:09):
and start to eat poop, you'rethere to correct it right away so they
know it's a problem. But that'sa or we talked to our vet and
talk to them about certain supplements andeverything else, and that's another way to
attack it. So it's a multiprongedproblem. It's a multi pronged solution.
So if you don't know where tostart, talk to your veterinarian and they'll
(09:31):
get you started. That sounds likea really tough issue to get passed and
get through. It's genetic, justlike anything else, you know, just
like training wise we've talked about.There's there's some genetic tendencies that all dogs
have, and some dogs have thema little stronger than others. It's what
makes it's the whole reasoning behind allthe different dog breeds is because we take
different traits from the breeds that welike or what they're or what helps them
(09:56):
do the job that we want themto do, and then we accentuate that
stuff that's genetically linked. This isalso a behavior that's genetically linked, So
it's not something that you just erase. It's something that in certain dogs,
with certain extreme cases of it,you have to kind of work with and
live with. And another thing isit's obviously abnormal to humans, but more
(10:18):
normal to dogs, canines, whatever. So we have a tough time getting
through that because it's so abnormal toright right right in their world, it's
it's business as usual, right,It's just accentuated a lot in multi dog
households or dogs that are isolated alot. You know, if a dog
is chained to a dog box orspends the whole day in the basement and
(10:41):
ends up pooping in there, andthat becomes an issue and the first thing
that comes. I want to behaviorwise too. Some dogs will actually eat
it to try to hide it becausethey know if they do it, And
when you walk in the door yesterdayyou were mad as heck for some reason,
so they'll they'll do the same thing. It's going, well, you're
probably going to be mad at againtoday, so let's try to work around
(11:01):
and clean clean up my area thatI'm living in. So get that attention
that they're looking for. What iffolks are interested in talking to the veterinarians
about this problem, maybe looking atyou guys at training or boarding or whatever,
how do they do that? TheEdgefield Animal Care Centers in Central Ohio
where a full service animal care facility, veterinary hospital, boarding, grooming,
(11:22):
training, all of that everything youneed. You can get all our information,
our phone numbers, our emails,everything you need to contact us,
everything you need to find out aboutus, and all the back issues of
The Dog Professor podcast You can findall that on our website at Edgefield Animalcare
dot com. Some great stuff.This is the Dog Professor podcast. If
(11:43):
you're just finding it, make sureyou hit follow where you're finding this podcast,
because every time we post a newone, you'll get a notification right
on your phone
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!