Coprophagia

Every family has favorite pet stories. As Julie & I have not permitted pets beyond fish, our children love the stories of their parent’s childhood pets, particularly the stories of Ginger the dog. Here’s their favorite story: Ginger ate her own poop. That’s it. That’s the story. There are other stories, even other stories about Ginger. But that’s their favorite.

Why do I mention this story you ask? Well, I was working on a blog entry about my basement that had turned into a rant against personal odysseys, home-improvement and scrap books, when I remembered this story and decided to research why a dog would eat it’s own feces. (What can I say, I’m easily distracted.) Here are the important, earth-shattering discoveries I have made since googling “feces eating animals.”

It is not known why dogs engage in coprophagia or coprophagy (from the Greek, copro = feces and phagy = eat), but according to the well titled article, “Why Dogs Eat Poop” by Daniel Estep, Ph.D. and Suzanne Hetts, Ph.D. (www.AnimalBehaviorAssociates.com), “One theory is that it may be related to boredom or stress. Another is that it is related to digestive deficiencies. Neither theory has any support at the present time. No one really knows what causes it.” (So if your children ever tell you they are bored…) The article does provide comfort to some dog-owners whose pets suffer from coprophagia; rats, rabbits and horses also eat their own feces.

Another article on peteducation.com suggests that poop-eating habits can be curbed by making the poop “taste bad.” As a matter of fact, www.peteducation.com makes and sells a product to make poop taste bad. It advises against putting cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce on the feces, because, unfortunately many dogs “acquire a taste for Tabasco.” The site does suggest however, that dogs be leashed, “in case a luscious pile of feces is found along the way.” Mmm Mmm, feces with Tabasco sauce; luscious.

After all this research I have finally concluded that Ginger’s coprophagia was not caused by stress, anxiety, intestinal disorders, primal carnivorous urges, or the taste of the feces. She was just a really dumb dog.