Puppy eating poo - how to stop it?

[Gorran]

Whenever we take Daisy out and let her off the lead, if she sees poo, she eats it. She's also eaten her own in our garden. Obviously this is absolutely revolting and makes me want to vomit, but it also can't be good for a dog to do this?

How can we stop her? I call her back when off lead if I suspect she's going to do it (and do try and avoid poo, obviously) but whilst her recall is usually fantastic, when she wants to eat poo (bleck bleck bleck) she pays me no attention. I put her back on her lead if I manage to catch her.

Anyone else had this problem?

V Common problem indeed. Most dogs do it at one time or other, and sometimes it is plain old habit. Mine eat variously chicken poo, goose poo, peacock poo, cow poo, sheep poo and on and on. I bollock them and move on.

But it can be caused by a nutritional deficiency; something which is missing from food or which she is intolerant of. What is she fed on? And does she have smelly ears, scurfy skin, dandruff or often full anal glands?

Oh and if you know she is going to ignore your recall when she's eating poo, don't recall.

March up to her and grab her. Make it clear that you're cross, say leave it and take her away.

If you give her a chance to ignore your recall she will very, very quickly learn that your commands are an opportunity to choose whether or not to listen rather than to do a sshe's told.

sprinkle her poo in chilli flakes, i am sure once she gets a nibble of that she will soon decided that poop eating is not for her!

Thank you. She's on Burns and looks to be in great condition, vet remarked as much a couple of weeks ago. She doesn't have any of the first three but I'll admit I wouldn't know if her anal glands were full - how do you tell?

And thank you also for the tip re. recall, makes perfect sense. I have done the marching up to her but she runs away from me and around me, if that makes sense.

Hi, mine still does this, If im not quick enough to stop him, he is 11

He also takes a liking to the cat litter tray!

Sorry, not much help.

But I do know that Chilli Flakes will probably cost you, money in medication to stop Bowel Irritation & the runs for weeks. So probably best to ignore Floras culinary advice, that even a human would shit for weeks with.

Apparently there was a paper about poo-eating at this week's AVSAB (here, the second story down). It says one hypothesis is that dogs that do it are just trying to be neat and tidy.

Work on her 'leave it' command so that you can just tell her not to.

I think she's just a greedy lab who will generally eat anything and everything. Thankfully not slugs and snails though. Bleurrghh. I will read that paper now RedwingS, thank you. And won't be trying the chilli flakes.