[zamboknee]

My Basset is eating his stool, pretty much right after it comes out.
Can anyone tell me why he's doing this?
Some info:
He gets 2 feedings a day of about 1 cup each of Hill's Science Diet 'Sensitive Stomach'. He has allergies so I give him 2 benadryl's at each feeding.
He's not mopey or slugglish and by all accounts in good shape.
Not overweight. 55 pounds and 7 years old.
Any ideas here? I've read that sometimes if you overfeed dogs, they (especially Bassets I'm guessing) can smell the undigested food in their stool and be enticed by that. I've looked in his stool and not found anything that looks to be undigested food. Besides, he's not getting too much food.
Any help would be great.
Thanks

 

[Soundtrack]

Some dogs just like to eat poop. It can run in families too.

 

[zamboknee]

I get that but he hasn't been doing that in the 7 years I've had him until the last month.

 

[Lightning&Stomps]

My dog Lightning is the stool-eating champion of the world. I gave up trying to figure out why he does it (the veterinary world has put forth a variety of possible reasons, but none have been proven); I think Lightning is just a pig who will eat anything, and poo is easy to come by. Some dogs, especially very young ones, grow out of it. But given that Clyde is 7, I doubt that will be the case with him. Various food supplements are available that supposedly make the stool distasteful, but you have to give it to all poo producers that your dog has access to. I have given Lightning "Dis-Taste"; I think it helped but I couldn't really tell. I found I had to give him about double the recommended dosage. And I couln't give it to the neighborhood dogs who visit, so it wasn't really worth it. Luckily Lightning has never had any negative effects (other than the nastiest breath ever) from it. The only real "cure" is to keep the yard free of poo, and to muzzle him on walks.

 

[Mikey T]

Can anyone tell me why he's doing this?

Some dogs just like to eat poop. It can run in families too

my favorite and what I believe to be the most likely and logical explination is from Raymond Compenger Author of "The Origins of Dogs".

How Wolves Became Dogs

Jonica Newby: For a long time scientists believed our nurturing instinct was enough to explain the relationship. We created dogs for our purposes. Man tamed the wolf - as a pet. But one outspoken professor of evolutionary biology thinks the pet theory of domestication is all just a fairy story.

Prof. Raymond Coppinger: How does it work where you go out and you bring a puppy back to the village and you make a pet out of it? And then what happens? A miracle happens, fairy godmother comes and turns it into a dog. How does it turn into a dog?

...
Jonica: it seems to me pretty reasonable that they go out and get pets. You know they go and get wolf cubs and so on. What’s wrong with that idea of domestication?
Prof. Raymond Coppinger: Well first of all wolves are just trained to run away from you. I mean they’re going to hide their little … isn’t this a much better model. You develop a better mousetrap. You develop a village. You get food in the village. Guess who comes? All right. Now you want to postulate some great scene where I’ve got to go out into the wilderness to get those things. Which one looks, which one looks easier to you? Far from we humans domesticating them, dogs invaded us. Not as pets, but as pests.
.. it’s the rules of natural selection. It’s Darwinism if you will. They’re coming to the food. They’re coming to the waste products and the thing about humans is that there’s tremendous numbers of waste products. Scavenging on village wastes was a wonderful strategy for the early wolf-dog - and maybe they weren't such a complete nuisance after all. Rubbish dumps breed disease. A mobile post-pleistocene garbage service might have come in handy. And it could help explain the dog's least endearing habit. Eating shit.

 

[Mikey T]

I've read that sometimes if you overfeed dogs, they (especially Bassets I'm guessing) can smell the undigested food in their stool and be enticed by that

It is more likely the opposite. It takes a dog that is hungry to eat feces. But keep in mind that a basset that is not hungry is likely overweight. I firmly believe that there is a breed predilection for insatiability in hounds that is related to breeding for hunting prowest and persistence. Which dog is going to be the better and more determined hunter the one that feels full or the one that is always hungry?

 

[gsally]

Interesting topic! My girl Lucy never ate her own poop nor did she ever eat any other dog turds but boy did she love all kinds of non-k-9 doo doo; cat, deer, goose. Her most favorite delicacy was found in the piles of little round turds left in the yard nightly by the neighborhood rabbits.

 

[Annie714]

WOW...I really did think Annie was just a weirdo (and I told her so) when she would try to eat bird poop! Perhaps I owe her an apology now.

 

[Scully]

Her most favorite delicacy was found in the piles of little round turds left in the yard nightly by the neighborhood rabbits.

Those little round nuggets of goodness are Ninja's favorite! It's a real feat trying to keep her from chowing down on them....those darn bunnies crap a lot. I think our yard is their preferred toilet in the neighborhood.

 

[Tandksmommy]

Our 11 week old puppy Bentley just ate his feces a few minutes ago. This is the first time he's ever done in, but then we've only had him a few days. I hope this isn't a long lasting thing because I don't wanna cuddle him with such nasty breath!