Coprophagia of the dog, all remedies

Curated by Maria Rita Insolera, Naturopath

Coprophagia is a behavioral disorder of the dog that causes it to ingest feces and can be solved with natural remedies. Let's find out more about what it is.

What is coprophagia

Coprophagia is the ingestion of feces, either from either other animals or people. It is common in dogs and rare in cats.

In many cases this pathology corresponds to a normal behavior in the canine species, the females, for example, ingest the faeces and urine of their puppies. There are adult dogs that eat the feces of a person or other animal species due to their high concentration of undigested proteins.

Therefore, coprophagy is not always a pathological behavior, but a normal and ecological use of a food source rich in proteins and micronutrients or simply obeys an atavistic instinct. However, there are dogs that look for nutrients or micronutrients in the faeces they lack (vitamins or minerals), so they must be followed by a veterinarian .

Sometimes, a dog's coprophagia can be related to the number of daily meals. If you only feed him once, it is possible that during the day you try to make up for the lack of food with this unpleasant behavior. Sometimes feeding him twice a day improves the problem.

There are three types of coprophagy:

autocoprophagy, when the dog eats its own excrement;
intraspecific coprophagy, when the dog ingests the fecal matter of another of its own species;
interspecific coprophagy, when the dog eats the feces of another species.

If an animal ingests its feces, it will usually not suffer physical damage, but if it eats the feces of other animals it could contract intestinal parasites or viral diseases such as hepatitis, parvovirus and toxoplasmosis (if the excrement belongs to a cat infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii ).

A dog can have a similar behavior to overcome the boredom or by imitation of other nearby animals . Sometimes, this behavior begins when the dog sees the owner picking up the droppings during the walk and imitating it by collecting a part and eating it. The dog, at the beginning of the coprophagy, discovers that he likes that taste, especially if it is a cat's faeces.

Coprophagia of the dog: cures and natural remedies

Coprophagia can be solved with a Bach flower treatment . The composition of the essences must substantially resolve the following aspects: anxiety, boredom and request for attention.

The Bach flowers indicated to treat this behavioral disorder are the following: