As a dog owner now or at some time, you have without doubt wondered why dogs eat poop. Seeing your dog eat poop makes you cringe and is out right disgusting. You wonder why and it certainly cannot be safe. Many dog owners have experienced this unattractive behavior to say the least. Truth be told, dogs eating feces is common and is a great source of stress for the dog owner. If your dog eats its excrement it has a condition known as coprophagia. Normally this is the associated with poor nutrition and anxiety issues.

Reasons Why Dogs Eat Poop

On the surface, trying to figure out why dogs eat poop can be mystifying. However, the reasons are simple once you know what they are. Dogs eating feces can be contributed to number of reasons. The simplest explanation is that they may be hungry or they might be trying to clean up their private space. If you do not feed your dog enough or if they are in a dirty pen area,crate or kennel they will work to resolve these issues by doing a little house cleaning, often resorting to eating their excrement.

There are also health issues related to poop eating. Worms or parasites will extract the nutrients from your pup’s system. This leaves your dog lacking the nutrients that it needs. Which can lead to poop eating as the dog works to replace the nutrients. Dry dog foods vary in quality and it may not be providing the nutrients that are required for your dog. Check the ingredients.

If the pup is neglected, bored or lonely it may resort to eating poop just to pass the time. donate your poop

Stress can drive your pup to do weird things. He might be upset, nervous or anxious.

Dogs that have puppies will eat puppy poop. This is normal and an instinct behavior. What they are trying to do is to protect their puppies from predators by hiding the evidence.

Some dogs and puppies will eat poop as an experiment. Don’t forget we are dealing with a dog here and they don’t know any better.

Dogs at times will try to copy your behavior. They watch you cleaning the area and mimic the behavior in their own way. They could also be copying other dogs eating poop.

Dogs with high fat diets are known to eat poop. Most often if the dog is over fed.

Some dogs just like eating poop. If the dog food is of low quality with highly digestible ingredients, the dog simply thinks it’s the same thing that was consumed.

Poop eating could be an indication that your dog is not eating enough or on a schedule.

Animals are curious creatures and dogs will eat just about anything. They will experiment eating strange things by smelling first an then eating it. Sound familiar?