Chewing and poo-eating

[EmD, MD]

Penny has started to destroy small things around the house. This morning while i was getting ready I took away from her a battery (!) and a tube of lotion. When her dad got up he saw that she had somehow gotten a hold of one of his collectibles and had destroyed it.

She turns one this weekend. There has not been a change in her routine recently. She has never done this kind of thing before...she has always been good about sticking to her own chew toys.

She has also really ramped up the poo-eating. I have to watch her like a hawk at the dog park but I don't always get to her in time :eek:

Any ideas about what might be going on, and/or solutions?

[Borgan]

Could be boredom, stress, teenage rebellion. Whatever the cause, a Kong full of peanut butter, a new marrow and an extra-long walk might be the cure. The poo thing is normal - Roosje once said if you give your dog raw pineapple, they won't eat poo anymore? Urban legend? Try it out!

- Brooke.

[EmD, MD]

I thought the pineapple thing was just if they ate their own poo...she eats everyone else's. :p

I can't understand the chewing thing...she goes to the dog park twice a day now. I just gave her a new bully stick so maybe that will take care of it.

[paulabeans]

I thought the pineapple thing was just if they ate their own poo...she eats everyone else's. :p

I can't understand the chewing thing...she goes to the dog park twice a day now. I just gave her a new bully stick so maybe that will take care of it.

Molly will also chew anything she can get her paws on. I think its just a dog thing.

About the poop eating though - it can be very unhealthy for her to eat other animal's poop. She can contract a variety of diseases that way, unlike when dogs eat their own. I am probably not telling you something new, but just in case....

Paula

[EmD, MD]

Riiiiiight, poop=bacteria, etc. I think I have the risks in mind (EmD, MD and whatnot). Not to mention that she has already been sick twice from water/poop-borne illness.

I need to know what others have done to stop coprophilia. The only ideas anyone else has given me involve the type of collar the rules forbid us to discuss.

And I also understand that dogs chew. I'm wondering why the escalation, why start now when the last nine months have been relatively free of destruction, has anyone seen this as a teenage "phase," etc, will she just chill out, should I start crating her again during the day, blah blah blah.

Strategies, people, strategies...I know you have them.

[franp]

DR Emily,

Penny's chewing is going on during the day when you are not at home? She is loose? Then by all means ,crate her..Take the temptation out of her way.

It was not obvious that she was loose during the day,But the only way at this point to make sure she can not chew is to restrict her.IMO, after a couple of weeks , she should be better ( I HOPE).

As for her taste for (ugh) junk food, not a clue.. Sorry. Just watch her like a hawk at the run and try to get to her BEFORE she snacks..

fran

[gmacleod]

I would put most of that squarely in the teenage rebellion/testing basket. It's pretty common in most dogs and lasts for several months. I'm afraid it can actually last a little longer in dogs who've been little angels up until now - simply because they've had (required) less demonstration of what's right and wrong (sorry LOL).

How reliable is Penny's "leave it" command? That should help with both issues.

On the chewing, by all means make use of the crate if she cannot be trusted loose in the house. But also work on her "leave it" - which aside from being very useful, is a good way to teach her what is and isn't hers to chew. If she even looks at something inappropriate, tell her to leave it and then redirect her to something of her own. Like little kids, dogs don't normally do too well with just being told not to do something, they need to be shown what to do instead.

Obviously, you can't rely completely on that, especially during adolescence, so make sure you puppy-proof well, and keep things you don't want to lose out of temptation's way. If she gets hold of something she shouldn't, then she should have had to make a big effort to get hold of it. If it was left around at nose level, well, that's just asking for an adolescent to give it a test chew ;)

As for the poop eating... well, one theory about that is that dogs are attracted to the amount of protein in the poop. So when it's the dog's own poop you're talking about, one solution (works frequently) is to switch the dog onto a high quality kibble that's got easily-digested ingredients, or better yet onto raw food, so that there is less protein expelled as waste in the poop, and it is thus less attractive to eat. Sadly, since we're talking about the poop of other dogs, that's as much out of your control as getting their owners to feed them pineapple. Best thing you can do, I think, is to try to take her only to places where other owners clean up after their dogs, and to work on her "leave it" command. A very very useful command for your dog to know, and one that should work from a distance :)

[franp]

As for Penny's poop eating; if it were only hers, she is already on raw..
If it were only that simple..

fran

[EmD, MD]

Yeah, I guess it really comes down to the fact that many of her commands don't "work" at the dog park. I have definitely been lax about that one. We'll work on it some more. I also definitely think she's in her teen rebellion. She never really had one so it would kind of figure.
The chewing thing is odd. It happens when I'm in the shower or getting ready in the other room, or in the 30 minutes between when I leave for work and when her dad gets up. A month ago I never would have thought twice about leaving her out of the crate for 4 hrs straight during the day, yet now it feels like I'm constantly taking things out of her mouth. And not all of it is easily accessible stuff except for 2 pairs of shoes (in which she has never shown any interest in the past...those are totally my fault.)
We got out a new bullystick yesterday and she hasn't sought out any contraband since, so maybe she just didn't have a satisfying toy of her own.

Thanks for some concrete ideas. Sometimes you just have to see the situation through someone else's eyes, you know?

[EmD, MD]

Hmm, I'm thinking I should put out a bowl of pineapple at the DP tomorrow...

[louie's mom]

Hi - I have not been on for a while but just say you poop-eating problem. Louie did this as a puppy and I started using a product called Deter that is made for this problem- it or somthing worked. I also think he loved the attention he got when I was trying to get him to drop it! I used the tablets and tried to ignore it- but this is in our backyard-so it is his poop! Good Luck!!

[Cara]

We used For-bid for copraphagia, but it only works if you can feed it to the animal whose poo yours eats (in our case, the cat, but not so easy in a dog park). We started working on a more permanent solution with "Leave it!" We'd drop a treat on the floor, yell "leave it," and stomp on it so he couldn't get it, then give him a different treat as a reward. He NEVER gets the treat we've dropped, but always a substitute. Now we can just tell him to "Leave it!" and he'll usually trot right over for his treat.

But you have to find a treat better than poo, which can be tricky.

As for chewing, we decided we couldn't run through each and every thing that he couldn't have, and opted to divide the world into "yours" and "not yours." We'd catch him with something bad, glower, and say "That's not yours." We then made a big deal of offering him his chew immediately and saying "THIS is yours" and praising him for chewing it. When we see it's time for a new chew, we always present it ceremoniously, with a "THIS is yours."

[EmD, MD]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

The chewing is tapering off. I think the answer was that she didn't have any satisfying chewies out for a while, so she got a couple of new bullysticks and a nylabone and I haven't caught her at anything recently.

For the poo-eating we are working on "Leave it!" and she is doing very well with it.