20 week old cocker eating her poo. When do I muzzle?

[Rinsefirst]

Female 20 week old working cocker, very bright, Olympic fast, living with older cocker, 12 years, male . Training going reasonably well but she eats her own poo and his poo if i am not fast enough. We seem to be in a downward spiral because eating her own poo is causing her to have v soft poos which then are harder to police... when i am picking up the first, she is off doing and eating the second.
I accompany her into the garden always and try to stay focused on grabbing poo ASAP
One area of our garden is wall to wall laurel bushes ,she's now taken to hide underneath and do her business there. I cannot reach it. Any advice - I've tried pineapple, grated courgette and now some pet stool tables from Pets at Home which i am giving to them both.
I've spoken to both vet and dog trainer who say she may grow out of it but be vigilant and pick up ASAP.
They say a muzzle might be an option.
Exploring having netting put round the laurel bushes.
Anyone used a muzzle at 20 week for this?

Also just two more things,

To people saying she will associate the poo with the muzzle and start hiding it: any young dog should really be trained to get used to the muzzle so that is not freaked out if she ever needs to have one on. It's not painful or uncomfortable to them so as long as you train them to associate it with treats and cuddles before you use it for real, you will have no problems with it.

Secondly, yes poop eating might be a natural instinct for our dogs but is in no way safe. They can catch a whole range of diseases from other animals this way, some of which are quite dangerous and costly to treat, if not deadly. The risk is of course lower if it's an occasional occurance and not a habit, but please don't let your dogs happily munch away if you can actually do something about it.

When I worked at the vet's office here, poop eating was the cause of majority of infections that came our way, and the owners were always completely ignorant/jokey about it and didn't realize the risks it poses.

I recall watching one of those really naff “it’s me or the dog” type shows about a poo eating dog. Basically they were at the point you were, rushing to get to the poo before the dog. The dog had associated this as either a game, or a “they’re going to take it off me so I’m going to scoff it ASAP”. I think they combined the PPs suggestions of “leave it” training with a nonchalant relaxed attitude (i.e no freaking out and sprinting to pick the poo up). Fingers crossed you can get it cracked OP.

I saw a dog trainer in TV tackle this.
It was a case if watching and saying "leave it" as soon as dog showed an interest in the poo.
It's called dogs behaving badly on C5. Can watch it on catch up.

We have a dachshund who is a poo fiend. Unfortunately although we are usually quick enough to stop him eating his and our other dog's poo,when out and about he is in constant hunt for it. Some people say it's a natural thing,as in the wild they wouldn't want to leave scent. Other people say they will grow out of it. Some say try garlic,pineapple,keep on lead,reward etc etc. Basically I think you will never stop them if they are partial to a bit of poo,but treats do occasionally work for us,otherwise we do regular teeth cleaning and don't let him go anywhere near us with his stinky breath!

I have heard that modern dried dog food contains added flavouring that passes through the dog and makes the poo tasty, not sure how true that is.Perhaps try different food?

Took ages to wean our 2 Collies off dog poo, they still get a bit of rabbit or horse poo now and then if we are not careful.

For some reason there is a sliding scale of disgustingness of various poos, dog ( or human!) at the top, then down the various herbivores until you get to rabbit.

Eukanubu Medium Puppy
Because of soft poos i'm also giving scrambled egg, rice and chicken.
If she stays off eating any of her poos , she firms up but I don't think we've had any 'non eat' days recently. She's very focused on it. I'm also doing more of the short lead walks as when she poos in the street she doesn't try to eat it as much. Having discussed it on this thread I can see it's about a habit being formed in our garden.

I'm doing the longer lead thing in the garden and we are working on the strong leave command. Its been wet here so conditions are not ideal but we are trying to do what has been suggested.

The laurel in our garden is not helping matters at all. To resolve this we employed someone this week to take part of the laurel bushes away and over next few weeks will come back and replace with a fence. (We had been saving up for a garden renovation for the last two years and are not quite ready but we've decided to get this element done when the puppy is just five months as this is our window of opportunity to train hard.)
Can't lie, I can't wait for brighter drier weather. Winter puppies make it SO hard.

boho and ledkr my daughter thinks she's located that on catch up. We will all watch it this weekend. Thanks.

Nixee - what sort and brand of muzzle did you train with? I'm hoping the strong leave and a better approach to policing will help

@Rinsefirst is look at introducing a completely grain-free puppy food to help with the poos. Do it slowly over a couple of weeks but you should see a big improvement after then.

Barking Heads is a good one to look at.

What about moving to raw food?
Might reduce the size of her poos and help them firm up.

Thankfully my working cocker never ate poo but she's partial to rolling in everything. If it was me I'd be keeping her on the lead until she's been to the toilet and teaching her to 'leave it'. Really useful command anyway when they get their nose into all sorts.

I used the Baskerville classic muzzle. It has a little removable bit at the front for extra protection against eating stuff, so even when our dog smushed his face in soft poop, it didn't reach his mouth. You can also wash it in the dishwasher but be wary that the leather bit at the top gets ruined that way. We just pulled that part off because the plastic is soft and smooth so there wasn't much need for it.

My cocker is not so bright (bless him), always the slowest dog, cocks his head with confusion when he realises I'm giving him an order... but the darling only ate his poo once and learned it wasn't food. For that, I am grateful.

What if you could spray something on his poo to make it taste revolting? Safe but revolting. perhaps that would put him off? May be better than preventing him from eating it entirely?

if you want to throw money at the problem
Coprophagia tablets... Different way to tackle it.

Thanks, Nixee. I’m still hoping we won’t need it but I now know which to get ....
The two landscaping blokes who came have taken huge amounts of laurel away since Wednesday and our garden by next week will have no hiding places. ( Ordering a fence on Monday). Drastic change. Training tomorrow with the cocker spaniel expert.

Swan - we’re on the tablets (six days) - tonight I had a new technique. I kept calm but don’t tell the dog police, I shone the torch in her eyes to put her off

I family I know always took their dog for a walk, out for toilet with a rubber toy in its mouth!!! Stopped it eating any poo

For a running tummy mix bio live yoghurt in with her food it's good for the gut.

Toy in mouth is a good idea.
At dog training this morning the trainer’s cocker got out of the van and promptly ran 40 metres and did poo. My dog followed and ate poo in front of whole class
Was such a shame as her own poos had been perfectly formed and picked up by me with no issue.
So it’s 1 trailing lead for garden 2 progression on leave command 3 me not to get flustered or noisy when awaiting poo
All the things Mumsneters suggested

Update. Pup now 22 weeks and today after diarrhoea for 24 hrs we went to vets. Only put on 0.4 kg in four weeks and currently 7.4kg. [The eating of her own poo is minimal now after changes to our garden (taken away/ pruned all bushes). Will still eat what she finds in park if we are not vigilant.
Bought small muzzle and while she familiar with it in house for short spells we not actually wearing outdoors.]
Vet said temp normal but she has upper respiratory infection and is being treated for eating something unsuitable. So she’s got another worming tablet, some mild antibiotics and a pro biotic the for 3 days and to go back in 7 days bringing poo samples if not better.
Vet says we can either change her food or keep her on Eukanuba medium puppy but give her more.
What is everyone else feeding their cocker ( or other ) puppy? I’ve asked our breeder to see if I can get a what’s app group for her litter mates started. But it would be good to hear what others suggest