Dear Jubilee,

Our new puppy is eating her poop, and a friend said that is because we feed kibble. We don’t want to make a home-made cooked or raw diet for our dog, so what can we do to stop this awful habit? 

Disgusted

Dear Disgusted,

We have fed raw for more than nine years. All of our dogs, with the exception of Hannah (11 years) have been weaned to raw, and all are in outstanding health. 

We have had several poop eaters, including Kate (20 months) who no longer indulges.  

Since it is a natural thing for females to eat the poop of their puppies, and since dogs will eat cat poop and other goodies like horse droppings when you are out hiking with them and if they can get away with it, I do not think that it is peculiar to kibble-fed dogs. In all the years that I or my family fed kibble (nearly 50) to a lot of dogs, I only saw two dogs eat poop, a Boston Terrier when I was a teenager and a Shi'tzu that I got 18 years ago. 

I think if people realize that this, like sniffing crotches, rolling in foul smelling stuff, and licking anuses, is normal canine behavior, they can be more relaxed about it when it happens. I have found that ignoring the behavior or just showing disgust when I smell it on their breath seems to work. When I freaked out with that Shi'tzu, I think she thought I liked it, and the habit continued for three or four years. Over the last 10 years, I have seen it occasionally in puppies, and they have outgrown it (or they do it in private). I have not smelled poop on any of our adult dogs in the past 10 years. 

The vet for the Shi’tzu 19 years ago told me that 50 percent of all dogs eat poop, and many owners have no idea that they are doing this. There are many products on the market that are supposed to stop dogs from eating poop. There are old remedies like eating figs and other things to stop the habit. None of these things work immediately. My opinion? It stops when the dog is ready to stop regardless of whether you use a product or a food to encourage it to stop. 

So relax; don’t make a big deal of it; and I suspect it will stop, maybe not as quickly as you would like, but soon enough that you will forget she ever did it. 

Jubilee