G-Diddy
05-29-2002, 11:39 AM
Just wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar experience with a coprophagic pup. For those who don't know, corprophagia refers to a dog/puppy eating their own feces (yuck).
When my GSD was about 15 weeks old she picked up the habit of eating her own feces. Needless to say, this was extremely revolting to my wife and I. We tried everything. We fed her garlic, punished her when we caught her, rewarded her for ignoring her feces, put tabasco on the feces, cleaned the yard very regularly, etc. and nothing worked. We used Deter to make her feces taste "worse" but found that shortly after going off the Deter, the puppy went right back to feasting. Our vet told us there wasn't a whole lot we could do, esp. since it didn't appear to be boredom related (she would stop right in the middle of a game of ball if she found a "snack").
Finally, at about 9-10 months of age, the puppy just quit. To my knowledge, she hasn't engaged in this behavior for about 2-3 months and needless to say, I'm quite pleased. She even completely ignores her droppings where as in the past they were in her mouth almost before they hit the ground.
I hope I didn't gross out too many people, but has anyone else had a similar experience, or have any other solutions that they have found successful? From what I have read (and obviously from my own experience) it appears that sometimes you just have to wait it out. So if anyone else has a pup with this nasty habit, don't give up!!
When my GSD was about 15 weeks old she picked up the habit of eating her own feces. Needless to say, this was extremely revolting to my wife and I. We tried everything. We fed her garlic, punished her when we caught her, rewarded her for ignoring her feces, put tabasco on the feces, cleaned the yard very regularly, etc. and nothing worked. We used Deter to make her feces taste "worse" but found that shortly after going off the Deter, the puppy went right back to feasting. Our vet told us there wasn't a whole lot we could do, esp. since it didn't appear to be boredom related (she would stop right in the middle of a game of ball if she found a "snack").
Finally, at about 9-10 months of age, the puppy just quit. To my knowledge, she hasn't engaged in this behavior for about 2-3 months and needless to say, I'm quite pleased. She even completely ignores her droppings where as in the past they were in her mouth almost before they hit the ground.
I hope I didn't gross out too many people, but has anyone else had a similar experience, or have any other solutions that they have found successful? From what I have read (and obviously from my own experience) it appears that sometimes you just have to wait it out. So if anyone else has a pup with this nasty habit, don't give up!!