Coprophagia - Poop Eating

Malamutes love their poop.  Some love it more than others.  If you have a cat, make sure the litter box is inaccessible.  While humans find it disgusting, it was a survival trait for Malamtues and those that ate poop in lean times lived.  The ones that wouldn't died.  Actually poop has a lot of undigested nutrients and dogs that eat it are recycling.  (I know, sounds like I'm trying to gloss over something really gross, but it's true!). They've given this wonderful dog hobby a name - Coprophagia.  Why do they eat poop? Nobody really knows.  Why do Malamutes eat poop? My feeling is they are taught it.  Star was never interested until one day Mom Penny took her out into the yard and you could almost hear the conversation:

  • Now, dear, when you have puppies one day, you'll have to eat this.
  • But it's GROSS...
  • Your future puppies are depending on you to keep their whelping box clean, so you might as well practice.
  • Do I HAVE to????
  • Yes dear.
  • It's yukky.
  • I know, but you'll acquire a taste for it.  Especially in the winter when they become poop-cicles.  Actually they're quite tasty, especially when our owner gives us that super high quality food. 
  • Ok, here goes....yuck....ok I did it. Now what?
  • Here have another.
  • I could learn to like this...

 And that's how it went.  Some dogs are just experimenters and find it on their own.  The worst is fresh pooped out poop... How do you stop it? It's not easy and your best bet if you have a poop eater is get out there and clean up the yard constantly.  I've tried all the sprays, peppers, food additives and whatnot and they don't do much at all, really.  Forbid works for awhile, but they tend to get used to it.  Adolf's meat tenderizer is supposed to help.. and a few other home remedies like putting pineapple in food. I really can't recommend any of them.  They usually don't work.  Didn't want to hear that did you?  The only remedy is picking it up before they can eat it.

It gets better.  It really is important you get the poop picked up and not let them eat it or it becomes a habit.  Even though we kept the yard pretty clean, you always have that ONE GUY.   That guy would be Theodore.  On a scale of steak to grass - he would put poop above steak.  He's totally gross at times as he WAITS for it.  (yes, the visual is disgusting).  But worse than that, the more we denied him his addiction, the faster he scarfed it down.  One day he just scarfed too much too fast and got a tremendous belly ache....which progressed to what seemed to be a bloat.  His belly was big, and hard and he was moaning so we rushed him to the vet.  They agreed, it looked like bloat so the tubed him (put a long plastic tube down his throat to empty his stomach) and what came out was the stuff of nightmares.  The vet said she'd never seen anything like it. Fortunately, emptying his stomach stopped the bloat and he was fine the next day.  But this is why you can't just say, 'oh heck, let them eat it'.  Occasionally you probably can't stop it, but by keeping the yard picked up you can save yourself the $800 vet bill. 

So poop eating is not just a disgusting habit, it can become a deadly one.  Don't say you weren't warned. 





 More information & Helpful links...

Here are some links on the subject of eating feces with various opinions: