I rescued a young Golden Retriever in May. She had spent the start of…

I rescued a young Golden Retriever in May. She had spent the start of her life abandoned in a small cage, she was emaciated, covered in fleas and ticks and of course living in her own waste. She is a wonderful dog, everything is new and she has very much been a blank slate. She is well exercised, is very social with our other dogs and has successfully completed a basic obedience class and will be moving on to 2nd level training and beyond. Thankfully she does not hold her rough start in life against humans in the least. Her only downfall is that she eats stool from our other dogs in the yard. We keep the yard clean, however we have 5 dogs. Even cleaning the yard daily is likely to leave a pile. She will even wait for our smaller dog to go to eliminate so she can eat it as fresh as possible. I imagine that she probably ate her own feces when she was starving, I am quite sure that this is a learned behavior. Over the course of 5 years my family has fostered 80+ dogs. I know that this is a very hard habit to break, however “poop kisses” are rather disgusting so I would love some input on what has worked for others! Thank you in advance.

Subscribe
Notify of
4,986 Comment threads
536 Thread replies
Followers
 
Most reacted comment
Hottest comment thread
Comment authors
1 Comment
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Krista Magnifico
5 years ago

Hello My Dear Friend, My rescued beaglette does the same. She also has the same back story and yucky penchant for poop. Here’s what I do.. clean up waste asap (yes, honestly I am not the best at this as I recommend others to be). I also use a clicker or beeper to break her of it while she is doing it. Some non-vocal (she doesnt really want to listen to me anyway in the fever of the fervor to eat anything) cue to say “HEY! YES! I mean you need to stop that!” It takes a while but all… Read more »