Why in God's name do dogs roll in shit?

[tdavie]

Took the dogs for a walk about 6 days ago, just before my holidays ended and while I was unpacking in my new place. I live just outside the city limits so a short walk gets me in the middle of nowhere.

So anyways I let the dogs off leash and the small one (Cairn Terrier) starts doing what I call the 'Happy Puppy Roll'. You know, they wiggle around on their backs like a pig in, well shit. I screamed at her, jumped forward, and at this point the other dog thinks it's a game; she rushes forward, finds the deer shit and starts rolling around in it. Both dogs.

It must have been a big deer/buck/whatever animal, and it must have had diarrhea. It was also very fresh. Both my hands were covered up to the wrists

Anyone else's dogs do this?

Tom

 

[MajorDoobage]

LOL of course it was fresh! What kind of fun would it be if your dogs got into some old hard stuff?

My dog rolls on her back in the grass all the time (not usually in excrement though). My wife researched it and said dogs do that to "capture a scent" so they can share it with the rest of the wolf pack. I'm sure you had fun cleaning that up!

Your post actually reminds me of a story. This past winter the wife, the dog, and I drove down to FL for the holidays. In northern WV, at 4am (in 38 degree F weather), I stopped at the gas station to refuel. While walking the dog, she assumed the defecate position, pushed out half a turd, and then... nothing. It was just hanging there for what seemed like forever. What started as normal valsalva maneuvers eventually progressed into violent writhing movements by my pooch in an attempt to dislodge the rest of the fecal matter. After her futile attempts, she decided it would be a good idea to grind her rear end on the ground. I have a Yorkshire Terrier who's hair is extremely dense, so she effectively smeared the feces all over her rear (I'm talking about peanut butter in shag carpet)!

I was in complete shock! I had no idea what to do, so I grabbed a bar of soap and a gallon of drinking water, a roll of paper towels, and attempted to clean her hind quarters with my bare hands. This was also in vain. I wound up just further entangling her hair with shitty soapy water. After about 15 minutes, my hands were covered in this fecal-soapy mixture, and because it was near freezing, my hands were completely numb.

I decided to give up at this point. I went inside the gas station, cleaned my self up, and took off. I rode the rest of the way to FL with my dog wrapped up in a make-shift diaper, smelling like feces the whole time. Good times.

 

[Smokey]

Hahahahaha yeah IME dogs do like shit, in fact, when I take my dogs out for a walk in the wild, they actually eat it sometimes, if it's a rare animal's, like roe, they like it better!!...and I remember my maltese rollin' with his back on some shit and getting smelly so in conclusion, our lovely pets crave 4 shit!

 

[lwien]

Scat dogs.

 

[djonkoman]

heard of it but never seen it
our dogs do like to eat animal shit tough, and they liked to eat the shit of one dog we don't have anymore(our suspicion is that it was because of the medication he was getting, for auto-immune desease)
they also liked to eat the dirt where that dig had peed

and they have a liking for eating grass and sometimes dirt and then vomitting it up inside the house
altough that hasn't happened for a while now

 

[jimbo]

I have jack russell that used to love rolling around in shit and eating it too, nasty..now she's turned
to carrion, any time we roam the trails and she finds something dead (squirrel, raccoon etc. the stinkier the better)
its roll time dogs can be pretty fucking disgusting

 

[tdavie]

Yup, they eat shit too. Spcifically cat poop (I think because of the high fat content it's really appealing to them). They aren't too snobbish to ignore some deer plop, rabbit pellets or other generalized garbage they always manage to see before I do.

We're in a new house so I think they're trying to eat up or absorb all the information in the area. There is one yellow VW bug (the modern one) that they always try to rub on when we walk past it; kinda puzzled by that one but oh well

AT least there are a lot of rabbits in the area for them to chase.

Tom

 

[wowthisisrandom]

Lol this reminds me of when my dog was just a puppy. We were worried about him being alone in our house by himself so we put him in a crate. I was gone all day but when I got back he had shit all in his crate. He had rolled all around in it and of course since I was the first one home I got the priviledge of washing him... That was fun

 

[AGBeer]

Honestly, I believe its instinctual. Namely for the hunting types of dogs (beagles/hounds) they do it to 'blend in' with their surroundings. Its also another reason they eat their own shit (to help cover their own scents)

Dogs do some weird instinct shit sometimes...

 

[Lily]

It is instinctive. Wolves roll around in stinky things to mask their scent so that it's easier to hunt for food. Dogs still retain that instinct just as they do other things, even after all those years of domestication.

Dog trainer/rehabilitator.

 

[tranceporter]

My friend had a dog that would eat it's own shit. How can an animal not have enough sense to disregard it's own feces? I had a dog for a while and never experienced any shit indulging activity.

 

[WatTyler]

^^^ Not so strange perhaps- it's called autocoprophagy

Gorillas eat their own feces and the feces of other gorillas. Similar behavior has also been observed among chimpanzees. Such behavior may serve to improve absorption of vitamins or of nutritive elements made available from the re-ingestion of seeds. Hamsters, guinea pigs and chinchillas eat their own droppings, which are thought to be a source of vitamins B and K, produced by bacteria in the gut.

But I thikn there can be medical reasons why dogs sometimes decide to eat their own.

edit: it caught my warped interest, so i went looking lol

Coprophagia may result due to various medical problems. Primary among them are exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, pancreatitis, intestinal infections, malabsorptive syndromes, and over-feeding (especially high fat content diets). However, with the majority of these conditions, many other signs beside the coprophagia will be prominent, particularly diarrhoea. Coprophagia is usually only a small aspect of these medical conditions.

There have been a variety of behavioural theories put forth as to why canines engage in coprophagia. ..... Several behavioural explanations of coprophagia are discussed below.

• Attention-seeking behaviour... [from the owner][/*]
• Allelomimetic behaviour: The dog observes the owner picking up the faeces and learns from them to do so as well.[/*]
• Learned behaviour:....[from other dogs][/*]
• Maternal behaviour:...... [bitches eating puppies shit][/*]
• Dominance behaviour:... [submissive dogs eat dominant dog's shit][/*]
• Reinforcement: Something about eating the faeces itself reinforces the behaviour. Things such as taste may be a factor in this. It's simply appealing to the dog to eat the faeces, so it does so. This is the likely mechanism in inter-specific coprophagia such as eating cat faeces.[/*]
• Feeding behaviour: Many people feed their dogs only once per day. Some postulate that dogs naturally want to have multiple meals throughout the day, hence they use coprophagia to supplement their feeding schedule and fulfil this need.[/*]

source

Well now I know. Just thought I'd share.

 

[tdavie]

WatTyler; thanks for posting that.

One of my dogs has severe behavior problems due to all of the changes that have happened to her in the last 11 months or so. We are attempting to make her new home as stable as possible as fast as possible. The terrier on the other hand has had no troubles rolling with the punches and already 'owns' her own spaces. Her poop eating is definitely learned behavior. I'll find out what happens when I take em out in a few minutes

Tom

 

[Kelblow]

My old Black Labrador used to eat his shiit sometimes.Yumm!!!

 

[VWFringe]

our dog loves to roll on dead worms to pick up the smell
reminds me of mustache jokes about savoring the flavor for later

i read you cannot train a dog to not eat cat poop, it's higher in protein than many other animal's
we had to get a covered litter-box

too funny, fur and isht

 

[smokum]

My labs drive me insane with their poop eating !!

They absolutely LOVE the horse poop pile, and disgustingly eat each others constantly. The rolling in it thing I havn't had problems with, however, they DO often find dead critters around the farmstead to smear themselves in (I think they just do it so I'll take them to the pond ).

Now....... why are dogs so stupid to not realize what a skunk is ??!! Sweet Jebus, they can get sprayed, causing me to go through the ordeal of skunk-off/shampoo/deoderizers, then that first time they go out again its to the exact same area and usually will get sprayed yet again. All within the same damn hour. Its to the point that now if they meet a skunk on the property I'll just grab the rifle and kill the friggin skunk, bag it, bring it home, soak it in gas and light er up.

Same goes for porcupines..... it breaks my heart to be pulling qwills out of dogs faces !

 

[colly]

Get some canned pineapple and drop some in their dish when you feed them, that should stop them from eating the shit.

 

[biojuggernaut]

I am intrigued. Why is this?

 

[smokum]

I'd be interested in that answer too.......

But, I know when the apple harvest season is in that the when the dogs attack the fallen apples.......................... there's no poop to pick up (can you say apple sauce ? haha).

 

[colly]

When the pineapple goes through the bowels and ends up as shit, it puts off a smell that makes the dog not want to eat it.

 

[momofthegoons]

Now....... why are dogs so stupid to not realize what a skunk is ??!! Sweet Jebus, they can get sprayed, causing me to go through the ordeal of skunk-off/shampoo/deoderizers, then that first time they go out again its to the exact same area and usually will get sprayed yet again. All within the same damn hour. Its to the point that now if they meet a skunk on the property I'll just grab the rifle and kill the friggin skunk, bag it, bring it home, soak it in gas and light er up.

Sooooo true! My last dog, a wheaten terrier, had this affliction. We have a shed in our back yard that I call the critter condo. Every year there's something living under it. One year (there have been a few) there were skunks. There were 13 babies. And the theory that skunks only come out at night is total bull. They could be out on the lawn frolicking at any hour. My poor dog got sprayed 7 times in 5 days. I finally had to shave his hair off. There was no getting rid of the stench. Even my hands smelled of skunk from washing him. I feel you on grabbing the rifle. If they were allowed in my area, there wouldn't be a skunk left!

 

[tdavie]

This fine Sunday morning (uh 16C, too damn lazy to convert....high 50's low 60's?) I took the dogs for a walk at 9:30 am. I smoked a bowl and hit the EQ for an hour or so, watching news, and then took the mutts out. I varied the normal routine (really is no real normal, only been here 1 month on the nose as of 7/24). Crossed the main thoroughfare and headed for a long winding walk along artificial lakes (heh, aounds fancier than saying retention ponds).

We're just catching the northern migration of uh Canada Snow Geese(don't know, don't care, love em just the same and feed em although I'm sure my neighbors wouldn't be happy), and so the path was littered with hundreds of bird turds, each about the size of a small tootsie roll (up to a small spring roll in size maybe?). The rescue mix mutt ignored them, but the Cairn tugged at the leash until I said 'Go eat the treats'. She ate 2 that I saw and hasn't been sick in 8 hours.

It's not like they don't know I have ground hamburger for them.

Tom

 

[Qbit]

Dogs eat shit; people eat McDonald's. I'm not sure which is worse.