Puppy - Toilet problems

blondy24

Hello,

Our lab is now 9 weeks old. She is getting better with the biting issue we have had, althought she eats her own poo. She has done this ever since we got her (7 weeks old), we pick it up as soon as she does it yet tries to compete with you and eat it before you get to it or eats the bits stuck to the grass/wet soil. We try to pick up as much as you can asap, you can even bring her in and she will cry because she wants to go back outside and get to any remains. Anyone else experienced this with their puppy, I believe it is called Dog Coprophagia any ideas if she will just grow out of it on her own or if anything we can try. We do tell her to leave it but this doesn't work.

Thanks

chris_n_tj

I have heard Pinapple in their food helps. To be honest it didnt help My Daughter with her dog when he was a puppy. She asked her Vet and they sold her some some thing which helped to stop it. ( will ask her when she is home from work)

Once she changed his food though it stopped overnight. He is now on JW junior. I know its not nice, so I hope you find a cure soon xx

blondy24

Thanks Chris if you can find out what the vet gave that would be great. I have read about pineapple, has anyone else tried this? Bit unsure that it will work.

We are going to the vets this weekend for 2nd vaccinations and will ask if they can help. She is currently on CSJ food which breeder recommended and apparently is a good one for puppies. Any ideas?

krlyr

CSJ is good for the price range but it is quite high in cereals which aren't well digested by some dogs. It could be that she's either not quite getting what she needs nutritionally so trying to digest the food further by coprophagia, or that the food is coming out only partially digested so therefore smelling quite food-like and appealing to her taste-wise!

Pineapple is meant to work as the enzyme bromelain helps with digestion and therefore breaks the food down to help her get the most out of it nutritionally, or prevents the waste being so undigested (and therefore appealing to eat). You could just add a bromelain supplement to her diet if you didn't want to faff around with pineapple, places like Holland and Barrett would sell this.

I would say take a three pronged approach - firstly, break the habit, which you can achieve by offering all her toilet breaks with her on a lead or a longline so you can physically prevent her eating the poo once she's been. Take some high value treats with you and really praise her for coming to you after a poo rather than trying to eat it - you may need to slowly work up from just getting her to look at you for the treat, to actually walking away from it if its that tempting to her.

Secondly, I would consider adding the pineapple or bromelain to her diet so you know she's getting the extra help she needs digestionwise, and thirdly I would consider adding to or changing her diet incase it's contributing to the problem. Perhaps phone CSK and explain the problem - they may be able to recommend an alternative product. Otherwise, I would try to go for something low in cereals by another manufacturer - I'd normally recommend something like Skinners or Autarky alongside CSJ in that sort of price bracket but unfortunately it seems their puppy varieties have more cereals in them than the adult versions so I'm not entirely sure who to recommend - my mum had good success feeding her pup Naturediet wet food after she displayed symptoms of a cereal intolerance, though it's not the cheapest food to feed (Pets At Home do their own version often on a multibuy deal though, Wainwrights wet trays - NOT the tins though). My mum ended up switching her pup to rawfeeding like mine, which really helped settle her tum fantastically.

blondy24

Thanks Krlyr for your response. I am tempted to change her food, what does everyone recommend? I would like to keep her on dried food and tempted to go to Pets at Home tonight to get a few kgs and mix with CSJ for next couple of days to see if it helps.

Raksha

Puppies fed too much or too rich a food will find it tempting to eat in order to extract the most goodness out of it. They can also learn it from their mother if confined for too long with her

helenthemum

Edens do a get food for dogs of any age, quite expensive, but you don't have to give as much making it last longer.

Have a look at https://www.whichdogfood.Co.UK to help you decide which one to feed your puppy.

bugslet

She probably will grow out of it as well.

You could try putting something unpleasant tasting on her poo as well and leave it there. Not sure what to suggest, maybe pepper would do the trick? Whatever, run it past the vet to make sure that it would do no harm.

IIRC, the tablets you can get from the vet, do the same thing, make the poo taste unpleasant.