5 Month Old GSD Female-Big Problem With Eating Poop - Page 2

Brandi - as for raw feeding (though a different topic) check into local meat processors and butchers for your meat.  We get our poultry from a poultry plant, and we get our beef and venison (free) from a local meat processor.  Deals abound...you just have to know where to look.

Seriously- Don's idea is the best one. Take away the source of the problem.

Pirates Lair,

Hard to take away the problem if the dog eats other dog's poop when out for a walk, jog, etc.  Also, not every person has the chance to walk behind all their dogs every single time it goes out to pick it up.
Ex: I leave for work around 5am in the morning.  For one, it's dark (I know they make flashlights), but I'm not picking up poo at 5am.=)  And sometimes, it's dark when I get home.  Again, same problem.  But on most days I'm able to pick up poo in the evenings.
And even after I've picked up the poo, my Corgi seems to find a turd I've missed! LOL 

The good thing is this dog is ONLY 5 months old...and has not developed this into a habbit..

Hi, Mikeyypl,

I believe that eating poop is psychological rather than “lack of nutrition”. I heard of many people with this issue trying different things. I know only one dog that actually stopped eating poop forever – and it was based on training. The same as you train your dog not to jump on you, you can teach him not to eat poop. You have to teach your dog that this is an unacceptable behavior. Different training methods will work on different dogs and I don’t think that there is a single method that would work for everybody. Dog that is looking up to you and tries to please you will respond to sharp “NO” and a jerk of the leash. With dogs that don’t respond to NO you have to do the “test run” of things that work, i.e. good treats like ham/beef if he responds to NO and leaving the poop alone; the dog that loves walks – as soon as he reaches for poop, you ‘drag’ him straight home and leave again without him (have a walk only if he avoids poop), etc. And as always it’s the best to keep temptation away, because even “trained” dogs do what they are not supposed to do when they think they can get away with this…

I hope this hint helps, good luck!

Now when I think about it a bit more, I realized that I saw Dog Whisperer’s episode on that a while back. I believe that he “redirected” dog’s fascination with poop. I believe he exposed his patient do the extreme ‘poop’ environment while redirecting the fascination to bananas. I think he was rewarding dog with bananas for not eating poop, right next to the poop lying on the floor… I’ll try to look it up, maybe there is a link somewhere to a clip or something…

Here it is – I found a clip from that episode on Hulu
http://www.hulu.com/watch/51795/dog-whisperer-this-dog-has-a-crappy-diet  

I wouldn't stop the dog from eating poo, I would use this "poo drive" to my advantage in training. Sounds like she's over the top for it and the sky could be the limit if used correctly as a reward.

Just my opinion.