help my dog eats his pooh!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE can anyone help, our staffy pup is 7mths old and loves nothing more than eating his pooh,we have tried many things, changed his food and is now on wainrights dried puppy food,we have tried all the suggested things that we have found on the internet,such as msg on his food, pineapple chunks with the juice mixed in his food,and deter tablets but nothing seems to work,we have told him off,ignored him when he does it, even tried the method of squirting him with water but he still eats it,we pick his pooh up in the garden when we see him do it,the odd thing is its only a fairly fresh pooh he eats,when its gone cold he leaves it(sorry about the finer details, but hopefully a full explanation of his nasty habit may help) He will also have a go at trying to eat it even when your watching him,We  keep him upto date with wormer etc and he has a nice big garden, If anyone can suggest anything else to stop our dave from eating pooh it would be very much appreciated,
thanks

Other than get to it before he does and clear it up or using a good Leave command not too sure what else to suggest. What do you mean by this - such as msg on his food ??

it was suggested that msg (an artificial food additive) could be sprinkled on his food and it would make the poop unpallatable, however it didnt seem to deter dave, we try to pick up but thats not always do-able, and he is usually quite obedient,and listens to his commands,however he will still try and get a quick mouthfull if we dont tell him "no" or "leave" quick enough. If i go into garden and he sees that i have spotted a half eaten poop he drops his head and leaves cos he hates being told off, so he knows we dont want him to do it,He has been good with his training in every other way ie- after being told "NO" for chewing woodwork a few times he never does it now, so i dont know why he still doing the poop eating  

What food does he have ?

He is on wainrights, its a hyperallergenic dry food, very similar to james wellbeloved, the vets have said its a very good food, we have thought that maybe he likes the taste once its passed through as well so have considered changing it. friends have 2 staffs and have always fed theirs on wagg (the dogs are thriving and look really healthy), so have even considered changing to this ? another thought we had is that his kibble is very small as its puppy kibble and he does gulp and not always chew so maybe he is not digesting it properly making it more appealing when poohing out, maybe a bigger kibble would help ?

Stay away from the Wagg food it is full of additives and rubbish tbh. Stay with Wainrights and move to the adult version, it could well be that his food is not being digested correctly.

ok, my thoughts about wagg too really, would he still get all nutrients and vitamins etc that he would need if i changed to adult ? thanks for your advice too, much appreciated.

He is 7 months now so should be fine on the adult version of the food.

I bought an amazingly good book - in TKMaxx, of all places - called Essential Care for Dogs by Drakeford and Elliott (2005). It even had a red (reduced) sticker! There is a section called Eating Muck on p130. The section starts by saying that eating muck (ie poo) is not without nutritional value if the waste came from a herbivore. However, the habit is likely to 'strain your relationship' (tactfully put) if it is a canine deposit. The book says that you 'need the leave-it command and lots of vigilance'. I think it's interesting that the authors do not say that the habit is actually bad for your dog, revolting though (to us) the habit may be. They go on: 'Personally, i find that dogs on the raw food diet are not attracted to eating muck, but there will no doubt be the odd hard case that has found it such a pleasant habit that she will not give up. It then becomes a training issue.' The book does advocate in general giving a raw meat and vegetable blend diet (which i am not doing with Douglas currently, though may think about it). I have a slight suspicion that, whatever the problem is, the authors would always say the answer is to give their raw food diet. However (my own opinion now), in your position I think i would attempt to clean up the poo at the first possible moment, and not let it lie. I would try and get to it before the dog thinks of eating it if possible. Speaking as someone without a garden, living in the city, exercising the dog mainly in large but very public shared spaces, it IS possible to be aware of every deposit the dog makes so as not to be a hazard to other users of the space. Training is always a good idea but, personally, I would try and head off the issue occurring in the first place with nifty and immediate poo retrieval. Maybe after a while, the dog would lose the taste for it....?

Please do not use MSG! It's one of the worst food additives in the market right now. Not long after it was first introduced as an additive in Chinese restaurants, people who consumed it started to report short term side effects. It's an excitotoxin, causing an excess of stimulation to cells, which could do damage do the brain cells, among others.

At seven months old, it's a good idea to change him to adult foods. Puppy foods have a huge amount of nutrients essential for growth, so it could be that these nutrients are not all being used any more, as he doesn't need all of them. As these unwanted nutrients are being flushed out, it's possible that it could be throwing his digestion out of sync. If I were you, I'd try gradually moving him up to the adult food and seeing how it goes.

When it's possible, try to pick up the poo straight away. When you let him into the garden, you could also try going first to have a quick check around for any poo you might have missed so that he doesn't get to it first.

Some dogs may just like the taste of poo, so it's a matter of breaking the habit, but I'd follow the advice that's been given above just in case it isn't behavioural.

Good luck!

mike nicholas wrote:He is on wainrights, its a hyperallergenic dry food, very similar to james wellbeloved, the vets have said its a very good food, we have thought that maybe he likes the taste once its passed through as well so have considered changing it. friends have 2 staffs and have always fed theirs on wagg (the dogs are thriving and look really healthy), so have even considered changing to this ? another thought we had is that his kibble is very small as its puppy kibble and he does gulp and not always chew so maybe he is not digesting it properly making it more appealing when poohing out, maybe a bigger kibble would help ?

Kathy wrote:Stay away from the Wagg food it is full of additives and rubbish tbh. Stay with Wainrights and move to the adult version, it could well be that his food is not being digested correctly.

Just a word on the Wainwrights , I feed it and my boy went onto adult food at around 6 months and no problems at all , in fact he is in fine fettle

I can sympathise. My staffy bitch has been doing this for 6 years-and she will eat hers,my other dogs,any other animals, if she found a human one would probably eat that as well:sick: . we have tried allsorts but nothing has worked . it is more common in bitches and i was told by my vet not to worry too much but just to ensure she was wormed monthly instead of 3 monthly. even using muzzles can cause problems as the dog will still try and eat through the muzzle. With being a pup he may outgrow it or the above suggestions are worth trying.

my staffy does the same thing well used to all because if hes on cheap food i.e wagg or bakers he then eats his pooh but since i swapped him to beta he doesnt eat it at all and thats because in some cases it can be the nutrients in his/her pooh that makes them want to eat it again but if its not that then it can be a wild thing sort of like stealth like if they are ill they will eat there pooh to hide the scent of them being there i hope this helped at all but the ways to stop it is either change there diet or get certain tablets that i have no forgot the name of or just be the human pooper scooper and beat them to it