Owners typically find it upsetting to notice their dog eating their own poop. In fact, this reason tops the list of unwanted behaviors to explain why some owners choose to re-home their furry friend. While only one-in-six dogs eat their poop on a regular basis, most canines choose to pursue this disgusting behavior for highly specific reasons. Read below to learn what causes dogs to typically eat their poop and what you can do to discourage this undesirable behavior.

What Causes Dogs to Eat Their Poop?

While eating poop, also referred to as Coprophagia, is a revolting habit that no human would ever consider doing, most dogs don’t view their dung in a similarly disgusted manner. Dogs who eat their excrement may do it for a variety of understandable reasons, some of these reasons are considered normal while others may indicate underlying health issues. Common explanations include:

• They Think It’s Delicious: A dog’s sense of smell and taste is wildly different than ours. To a dog, their poop may be pact with interesting information as well as proteins, essential fats, and other nutrients that may smell delicious to them. 
• Newborn Litter: Mothers who just gave birth to a litter of puppies will often eat her babies poop to keep the den clean. This is considered normal behavior, although be sure this behavior stops once her puppies have weened past the puppy stage.
• Instinctual Behavior: Wolves often eat poop that’s less than two days old. While fresh animal poop doesn’t generally produce larva or parasites in the first 1-to-2 days, dogs may have picked up this instinctual behavior to chow down on fresh fecal matter.
• Stress: Dogs may eat poop as a response to being underfed, neglected, or is experiencing anxiety stemmed from something in their lives.
• Vying for Attention: If a dog who doesn’t typically eat poop starts to eat their poop, they may be trying to tell their owner that they aren’t feeling very well. In this situation, contact your veterinarian at once.
• Medical Issues: Diabetes, thyroid disease, cushing’s disease, nutritional deficiencies, and much more can all be causes of coprophagia.

How Can I Encourage My Dog to Stop Eating Poop?

Dog poop is packed with harmful bacteria that can cause them harm if eaten, so it’s highly recommended to discourage your dog from indulging in this disgusting habit. Fortunately, coprophagia in dogs can be corrected by regularly pursuing the following practices: 

• Constant supervision when your furry friend is outside and prevent them from approaching or eating feces.
• Change their diet to a more digestible option that includes the essential nutrients they need. Dr. Bill’s Pet Nutrition supplements does an optimal job at providing all the vitamins your canine needs.
• Enact on home remedies that cause your dog’s still to taste and smell less pleasant. 
• Quickly dispose of your dog’s feces when they poop.
• Regular behavior training. Dr. Bill’s Canine Behavior Support dramatically helps with this task as well.

Stop Your Dog from Coprophagia with Dr. Bill’s Pet Nutrition

If you believe your furry friend is eating their feces due to malnutrition, Dr. Bill’s Canine Ultimate Fitness & Health will provide them with optimum nutrition. Additionally, if your dog is purely eating their feces out of habit, Dr. Bill’s Canine Behavior Support will significantly improve your chances of discouraging this disgusting habit. Our Canine Ultimate Fitness & Health supplement contains 83-active ingredients which are formulated to provide a blend of highly biologically accurate proteins, essential vitamins and minerals, and other ingredients known to be helpful in the development and maintenance of a strong body, improved health, and an extended life. Our Canine Behavior Support provides 35-essential ingredients to support a calm demeanor and a healthy stimuli response. Behavior Support has also been shown to be helpful during periods of stress, such as altering behavior response during moments when they would otherwise eat their poop.