Why dogs eat poop feces: the 3 main reasons

You have your beloved Pomerian or your German shepherd or your Labrador, you love it very much. It’s your friend, companion and is part of your family.

Everything is going fine, until one day you find out that your beloved Dog was doing something you would not have imagined! He has been eating his own feces!

This must have shocked and baffled you – You just did not know how to react! This brings us to the Question – Why dogs eat poop feces?

Why dogs eat poop feces? Labrador.
Why dogs eat poop feces? Labrador.

Well, do not worry; you are not alone, as many dog owners face this issue. The good news is that in most cases it is not a disease your dog is suffering from, it is just an unpleasant habit he has got accustomed to.

What you will discover as you read through is that there are quite some reasons, some pretty obvious and some pretty interesting ones, that make your dog want to resort to this type of behavior.

3 main reasons why dogs eat poop feces:

The 3 main categorical causes why your dog eats its poop or could resort to the same are the Behavioral, Medical and Natural Causes.

Behavioral reasons

Your dog could be eating his own or any other animal’s poop maybe because he watched his mother do the same as he was growing up and learned to do the same. Maybe it seemed very ‘natural’ for him to eat feces.

Medical reasons

Your dog is eating his poop maybe because he has some medical problems such as Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency, severe Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Intestinal  Lymphosarcoma among other related problems.

Another reason could be that it is just hungry and was not provided enough food.

Natural causes why dogs eat poop feces

A very interesting factor, is that your dog could be doing so (eating poop / feces) to get your attention. I know, this could sound a bit surprising and maybe unbelievable but it is TRUE.

Sometimes our dogs, which are our dear pets, resort to this kind of behavior out of sheer fear that you as the dog owner would not be happy about his untimely bowel movement  and he tries to ‘clean’ up his feces by eating it!

What should we do?

What most of us often fail to realize is that it is important for us to first know the exact cause behind why dogs eat poop feces, because the remedy or cure for such a behavior is based on the cause.

Trying hard to get our dogs to get rid of the habit without exactly knowing the right cause for such behavior is almost like resorting to taking some drug just because it’s a drug, to cure some ailment that we have!

What can help you to help your dog to refrain from resorting to such behavior is to be patient enough, find out the exact reason for such a behavior and practice certain specific preventive measures.

There are 15 possible reasons explaining why dogs eat dogs feces:

We’ve seen together the 3 main reasons for Coprophagia. Before you go to the vet with your dog, you must know that there are 15 possible reasons.

I’ve listed them all in a 10 page guide explaining why dogs eat poop/feces. You will also learn more about the causes and ofcourse the preventive measures.

Click Here to discover more.