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Dogs eat their fecal matter for a number of reasons such as hunger, malnutrition, worms, boredom, inadequate space, stress or curiosity. Dogs who eat their excrement should be put on a higher quality diet, fed twice per day, and walked more frequently. Here are some of the possibilities explained:

1) Most of the time they lack nutrition in what they are eating so they eat their own waste or that of other dogs. One way you could try to stop this is by feeding your dog one piece of fruit a day.

2) Dogs may eat feces - their own or another animal's - out of hunger, curiosity or, most appalling to us, some dogs appear to just plain like it. When walking the dog, keep watch for droppings ahead before the dog gets to it. As you approach the droppings, hold dog's head up with the leash to bypass it and give dog a small treat and praise. He will soon associate ignoring other droppings as being a "good dog!" and will continue to ignore them.

3) A dogs nose is very sensitive and can pick up a lot of smells at once. A humans nose usually only picks up the strongest scent. When a dog smells any kind of feces, they don't just smell that disgusting smell that we can only smell, but they can smell the different food particles in it. They smell in layers. So if your dog smells another dog's body waste he probably smells something tasty in it and will eat it. I don't know how they can stand the taste though.

4) If your dog has birthed puppies, they instinctively eat their excrement in order to hide them from predators.
Dogs eating the feces of another dog (or their own) is called copraphagia. But it isn't just pugs that do it; all breeds do. Ironically, I have two pugs, one of which will eat that of the other pug's if I don't go out with them when they go and pick it up.

There are a few things you can try, which may discourage your dog from doing this. You can add one or two tablespoons of canned pumpkin to the dog's food (the dog whose stool the other one eats) which is thought to make it less appealing to the dog that eats it. You can also add a bit of pineapple to the dog's food (again, to the food of the dog whose stool the other dog eats). Meat tenderizer is another thing you can add to the dog's food, which has helped in some cases. Ask your vet how much meat tenderizer to add to the food for the size/age/weight of your dog.

It's best to stop this behavior as early as possible, since once it becomes an established habit, it will be even more difficult to break. If you can't break the dog from doing this, then you need to watch them closely when taking them out to 'potty' to keep the dog from eating stool. It can cause intestinal parasites, as well as some other illnesses.

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