Does Your German Shepherd Dog Eat Poop?

One of the most challenging situations for you as a dog owner is when your dog have grown a tendency to eat poop and you need to stop him doing so.

The first step to dealing with this problem is to spot out what makes your dog find poop edible. Apparently eating poop may not cause any instant damage to the health, but the habit is one of the most unpleasant behavioral flaw that hinders the healthy environment when it comes to staying with dogs. However, this habit of eating poops, called 'Coprophagia' may expose your German Shepherd to the risk of getting heavily infested by parasite, and viral or bacterial attack.

Image Courtesy: Wolfie & Ustina - Mr. S. Mitra, Lt Col, IA.
(Wolfie & Ustina are highly trained & award winning specimens and have got no relation with any kind of behavioral issues talked about in this post. )

Several studies have come up with a few conclusions as to why dog may be growing tendency to eat stool. While some of the reasons are simply quite natural based on certain situations, the others are driven by really complicated psychological factors.

Natural Reasons Why Your GSD Eats Poop 

Mother cleans her puppies (Natural Maternal Instinct): Mothers tend to lick up her pups after they are done with their meal. This is a natural process to defecate puppies and to stimulate urination. Most often mothers also lick up their babies stool and urine as a cleaning process. Dogs living with us at home should be kept under supervision and the owners needs to be a bit more proactive with the cleaning process until the puppies grow and separated from their mother.

Psychological Triggers Driving Your German Shepherds To Eat Stool 

Frustration elicited habit: Poop-eating habit has been connected to certain psychological conditions by some canine behaviorist. Studies aver shown that bored, frustrated, unattended and lonely dogs usually develop certain undesirable behavioral problems - and 'Coprophagia' (habit of eating stool) is one of them.

German Sheperds are working dog and always need something to do until their energy is fully exhausted through proper exercise. Hence they get bored more easily compared to many other breeds if they are left unattended and without right exercise. Loneliness and boredom generate mental stress in your dog. Just like many of us are found biting nails under stress, your shepherds may develop 'Coprophagic' tendency as a frustrated elicited behavior, often times leading to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In case it has developed into OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) medicine doesn’t really work. It is then recommended to provide your GSD with an optimized environmental enrichment – play fetch, chasing Frisbee, long walk (composed of both brisk walk and stroll).

What Some Nutritionists Have To Say About This 

Some nutritionists think that food type contributes to this habit to a fairly good extent. The food that you give to your shepherds may have nutrient deficiency. Same food may work good with other dog, which means your shepherd require certain thing in extra. This is yet another challenge to find out what is that thing that your dog is not getting adequately. It may not be the case that your dog is not getting adequate nutrient, but some nutritionists believe that malabsorption of dietary nutrients in your dogs may also lead to Coprophagia.

Many dogs are keen to ingest stool of other animals and investigate garbage bin to find what have to eat. Often times, odor of poops and garbage acts as an enticing attribute for you dog and waste parts, like stools and stale garbage may not be unpleasant to dogs unlike they are for us, humans. Many a times I have found many dogs getting attracted to fowl odor while investigating environment.