When species eat feces
September 24th, 2007 11:36:29 am pst by 
Sterling Camden
This morning as I was walking Halley and Harry, Halley took one of her frequent detours to sniff out the morning news, while Harry and I stood by patiently. My thoughts wandered (as they usually do, having no natural leader among them) and I didn’t notice that Halley began to squat down. When I finally looked in her direction, imagine my surprise to see Harry eating the Play Doh right as it was being squeezed out of the factory!
I grabbed him by the collar and scolded him, “You crazy canine! You don’t have to take everything Halley tells you to do literally, you know!”
Then I remembered a story my father once told me about a “safari” down in Florida to which he had taken some other family members (I had already grown up and moved out by then). He said that when they came upon a herd of elephants, he saw one elephant insert his trunk up to his eyeballs inside his companion. My Dad had opined that perhaps this elephant was selflessly helping his fellow-elephant with a case of constipation. Sure enough, the trunk re-emerged with a huge lump of, um, well you know what — which the pachyderm proctologist proceeded to devour with relish. (No, not pickle relish). The reactions of all observers were generally along the lines of “Ewwwww!”
Remembering this story led me to wonder how common this practice might be among various species of animals.
After some creative Googling, I found that this behavior is called “coprophagia” — an excellent word formed from Greek kopros (feces) + phagein (to eat). According to Wikipedia, natural selection has made the practice a regular feature of certain species, being beneficial to their survival in various ways. Elephants, for instance, are born with sterile intestines, and need to load up on bacteria from the guts of other elephants before they can digest their food properly.
The article also lists several possible reasons why dogs participate in the feces-fest. Some sources indicate that it’s a generally harmless behavior, if disgusting. I’d have to admit that it would be nice not to have to pick up after them — but it sure makes that lick to the face feel a lot less friendly.
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I was going to eat dinner but now I think I’ll take a nap.
HAHA — sorry I spoiled your appetite.
My pup will do this if we haven’t caught her in the act of pooping in the house. If you want to discourage this behavior, put some pineapple chunks in their food.
My poop thought for the day.
Pineapple? How interesting. This was the first time I observed the behavior, but if it gets to be a problem, then pineapple it shall be!
Thanks, Tracy.
LOL! I’m owned by some dogs, and am
familiar with what you’ve written -
unortunately. Really got some giggles
out of this.
I’ve never been on this blog. I had a
dream, which I just woke up from, about
something called “web trees”. Of course,
I Scroogled, and hit one was this site. The
The link about web trees was dead, though,
and the Wayback says blocked.
Where would I find that post?
Welcome new reader! And thanks for your comment.
Hmm, is it maybe this page? I don’t know why it would have been blocked…
Thank you
It doesn’t fit my dream, lol.
I’m not a geek, and math makes me glaze over
(unfortunately) but my web tree was the potential
for something really cool.
How could I find a geek to create it? I’ll want
my share of the loot, though!
I’m a geek — what’s your dream? You can email me privately at sterling@camdensoftware.com if you don’t want to share it publicly.
BLEAH! that’s awful!
I wouldn’t want to smell your dog’s breath after this
He he — yeah, I felt evil posting about it. But sometimes I like to be evil.
Just a couple of other comments about coprophagia:
If you’re dog is eating a lot of poop a trip to the vet is probably in order–it can sometimes be related to pancreas problems.
Coprophagia is primarily a behavioral problem, rather than a dietary one. That means that most of the supplements that you can buy at the pet store won’t work and it will take a bit of effort to resolve the problem
If you want more information on why dogs eat poop, please check out my blog.
Thanks for the additional information, Vernon. The vet OK’d Harry’s health, so I guess it is just behavioral.