My maltese eats his feces then throws up

[maxito]

I have a 6 year old male maltese who has a habit of eating his feces and occasionally throws it back up. We have had him since he was 6 weeks old and he started doing it then. I put Tabasco sauce on his feces once just to deter him from eating it. Well, it made no difference. He scarfed it down! I think I even tried Forbid and Deter or something along those lines. At the time that we got him we had no landscaped backyard, as it was just mud and dirt. Since I like to keep my house as clean as I can, I didn't want him going outside and getting dirty, then tracking in mud all over the place. Maltese's have that hair that everything sticks to. So, he is trained to go on a newspaper lined tray in the laundry room.

The problem is that if we aren't right there to pick up his waste he occasionally will scarf it down. He then throws it up any where he happens to be in the house hours or days later. There are no signs that this is coming either. He'll go for months without throwing up, then it starts all over again. I have kept him on one brand of premium dry food all of his life and he doesn't get table food at all. This keeps his feces predictable in consistency.

If we retrain him to go outside or take him to newspaper in the garage, and then take him back in the house, what do we do during the night, as he goes frequently during the night as well? That's when he eats it the most as no body is right there to stop him. I'm afraid without that newspaper lined tray indoors, he'll roam the house and just go.

This is very upsetting to me and my carpet has been soiled as well as my furniture. He's only 8 lbs so he roams all over the couch. I have new furniture on order and I just know he's going to throw up all over the new couch too.

I'm at a loss as to how to get him to quit eating his feces. His vet say's it's just one of those things some dogs do.

I can't take this anymore. Can anyone help?

[Catlady711]

Stool eating can be caused by 2 things....

1) a deficiency in a digestive enzyme. Take a fresh stool sample to your vet and ask for a 'film digestion test' to check for a deficiency in the digesting enzymes. If there is a deficiency the treatment is a inexpensive pill at each meal.

2) a bad habit.

I'm unaware of anything else that causes that problem.

Keep the stools picked up right away and check the stool sample with your vet to rule out medical problems.

[Karen]

This behavior is called copraphagia and there have been many threads on this here, so you are not alone!

Here is one informative one.

[maxito]

Thank you Catlady and Karen for the information. I'll take Max to the vet again. I just wish he would knock it off and quit throwing up!

[keeppitsalive]

ok so this might not be the right choice for you but my dog had the same problem i was told to feed him a little cat food becaues it has turine in it and dog food does not have enough of it in there

[Catlady711]

ok so this might not be the right choice for you but my dog had the same problem i was told to feed him a little cat food becaues it has turine in it and dog food does not have enough of it in there

Did a licensed vet tell you to feed that to your dog? Cat food has way too much protien in it for dogs.