Poop Dog or “You are what you eat?”

I was trying to figure out how and what I wanted to write about this subject that I have observed for a few months now. I finally did a Google search and found out that this is not a totally uncommon problem and that there is a name for it also. Who’d known?

My dog Levi who I lost last March was a wonderful dog and friend. No bad traits at all unless it was the one where he would let anyone into the house. Levi had no malicious traits and it seemed he never met a stranger and continues to be sorely missed by me to this day. My wife had lost her dog Casey the year before Levi and could not take the loneliness coming home to an empty house so she found another a few weeks after my loss. He is called Gus now and she has been raising him since he was about 5 weeks old. There were the typical list of items to deal with and training to make Gus a household member.

Many hours were spent taking young Gus outside every twenty to thirty minutes for his potty training. There were chew toys provided so he could learn not to chew on shoes or other items and took to most of those things quickly. When he was really young I first noticed a phenomenon that confirmed my reservations to letting a dog lick your face. With my other dogs over the years I had not ever noticed this activity so I was not sure the proper thing to do.

Gus would head out in the early morning hours before I left for work to do his business before being put inside his kennel I first noticed his curiosity with his fresh poop. Many mornings in Alaska there is usually a nice ‘steam’ rising from the small pile in the yard. That early morning coolness gives way to those time honored observations about the many pooping habits of animals here in the Arctic Northland. Moose drop their nugget sized pellets while the bears leave scat scattered around the neighborhoods where they scour through the trash of those who do not secure it properly.

As I continued my quest to find out about this habit that now appears to be a common thing to which I had no idea. I did a Google search for “dog eating poop” and it turned up 1,800,000 entries to my surprise. There were several sites from both medical and animal organizations which gave various explanations of why dogs eat their poop. It even has a formal name; “Coprophagia” is the ingestion of poop that is neither accidental nor incidental. It is deliberate and habitual.

I even went so far as to sit down with Gus and ask him what in the crap are you doing? Here is his response to my questions because inquiring minds want to know.

“I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but I ate my own poop a few days ago and I don’t know why I did that. I was kind of bored and just wanderin’ round the back yard and came upon a piece that was two or three days old lying on top of the last snowfall. I looked at it for a bit as it was mostly dry & light brown with whitish flecks and a little dried peanut sticking out around the edges. I remembered where I was born in Minnesota there were only a few bugs that remained active, like barfly’s in some dive lounge at 5:30 in the morning so I leaned in to get a quick sniff, the aroma had mostly faded but I caught a whiff of something reminiscent of my kibble and I guess that’s what gave me the idea, ‘I could eat this’!

I glanced around and no one was watching or shouting ‘Hey don’t do that’ as I looked back at the pile and glanced around once more, then looked back at the object of my depravity. I did it, gingerly picked up the piece and flipped it back into my mouth . . . I began chewing, slowly at first, eschewing enthusiasm as a concession to guilt, then a bit faster as I didn’t want anyone to catch me in the act. I felt subdued for the rest of the day until the human came home and she met me with her usual cheerful greeting and scratched me behind my ear so I licked her face and felt much better that no one knew.”

For my wife’s sake thank goodness for breath spray, toothbrushes and toothpaste for dogs. She likes it when any of the dogs give her that little lick or kiss as she plays or spends time with the animals. I have never been able to bring myself to letting any of my dog’s lick me especially around my face and now I realize why.

There are many pet products on the market that may help you with this problem. The commercial solutions that can be added to your pet’s food may make the food less appetizing. Apparently, the pills come with the following promotional message: "Makes feces unpalatable." Now to me that begs the following question:

Precisely what flavor does one add to dog shit to make it "unpalatable"??

Eat poop or not to eat poop, that is the question I guess for some dog or other animals but for me . . . I think not.

But I will admit I have seen some women wearing Moose nugget earrings that looked pretty especially when the light shines on it just so.

Ice