If you are here, then I am sure you have caught your adorable beagle pup doing a disgusting misdeed of eating his own poop. Coprophagia is very common among dogs, especially when they are puppies. But why do beagle puppies eat their own poop?
Beagle puppies can eat their poop for various reasons like to kill boredom, gain your attention, or due to disorder, illness, anxiety, or fear. Many puppies eat their feces simply because they like the taste of it.
Coprophagia is the scientific term for the habit of eating poop and it is more common than you think in dogs. In fact my younger beagle, Groot had it too.
We will look into some common reasons why beagle puppies do it and also find out how to stop them.
Reasons Behind this habit
There are so many reasons for a dog to eat his poop that it can be hard to find the root cause of this behavior. Here are some of the most common reasons:
To mimic their mother
When the beagle puppies are young, their mother eats their stool to keep the den clean and prevent diseases. She starts doing it from their birth until they learn to poop outside.
Seeing their mother eat poop, puppies follow her and start eating their poop too.
While the mother stops this behavior eventually, the litter may continue with this habit until they mature.
Boredom
If your puppy is bored from being inside the home all day, then he may try to find new ways to kill boredom.
After roaming around the house and chewing on furniture, if he sees his own poop lying around, he might give it a try. Soon enough, eating his poop will turn into his habit.
If you think that’s the case, then take your pooch outside for short walks, play with him, and give him toys.
Dog food with Fillers
Dogs are ancestors of wolves, who use to feed on raw meat and bones and their digestive system is evolved to digest it.
In this modern age, most beagle parents prefer kibbles as they are affordable and more convenient to store and feed.
Even though kibble dog foods contain all the essential nutrients that dogs require, it also contains fillers like grain and other additives to make the food more desirable for dogs and affordable for their owners.
These fillers have little to no nutritional values and they just fill up the dog’s belly. They do not get digested properly and get passed out from the other end.
As these passed out fillers contain flavors, puppies, and dogs that may turn to consume their poop.
Switching to premium quality, filler-free dog food may help stop this behavior. I always recommend these three dog food for beagle puppies as they do not contain any type of filler, grain, artificial preservatives, and meat by-products.
You are underfeeding your puppy
Puppies grow like a weed and they need the right amount of food to fuel their growth. It is possible that your puppy has been eating his poop because you are underfeeding him.
Just make sure that you satisfy his nutritional requirement. Ask your veterinarian to provide a weekly food feeding guide for your puppy.
To get your attention
This one fine day, you are busy doing your work, and you puppy poops in the backyard. He is curious and no one’s around, so he decides to lick his poop. He gets more curious and decides to examine it by putting in his mount, why because that’s what puppies do. When you pass by to check on your pup, you see that your adorable little furball is eating and playing with his poop. You scream NOOO and run to stop him. This does nothing but excites him.
And that’s how your smart little cuddle monster figures it out that eating his own poop will get him your attention.
Fear of being punished
Puppies do not have as much control over their bowel movement as adult dogs. They will have accidents every now and then inside the house or in their crate.
In such situations, if you punish your puppy this will negatively affect them. This will plant a seed of fear deep inside their mind.
The next time when they accidentally poop inside the house, they may eat their poop out to fear of being punished.
Just because they like the taste of it
Yes, the reason can simply be because they like the taste of their poop. In such a case, you will need to be ready to clean as soon as they poop, until they are housetrained properly.
Other reasons
Other reasons behind this behavior may include stress, anxiety, disorder, or medical conditions. In such a case, seek help from your veterinarian.
How to Stop a Beagle Puppy from Eating Poop
The best way to stop this habit is to prevent your puppy from eating his poop. The general idea here is to make him forget that he can eat poop by not allowing your pooch to even interact with it.
This means to clean to poop as soon as he does it. If you have a backyard then note down the time when he usually poops every day and monitors him around that time. Pick it up or put some mud on it as soon as he poops.
Few Tips
- If you fail to pick it up on time and catch your beagle puppy eating his poop, then quietly go and pick it up. Do not even speak with your pup. This will make it clear for him that he won’t get attention if he eats his own feces.
- Do not punish your puppy for doing this.
- Make sure he is getting enough exercise daily. Take him out for walks, play with him, teach and revise tricks. Here are 12 exercises for your beagle.
- Apart from that train your beagle to come to you on command, so that you can recall him as soon as he poops. Teach your beagle the ‘leave’ or ‘drop’ command to spit out the poop which he is eating.
- If he ends up eating poop then brush his teeth. Use dog toothbrush and paste only. You can even give him some dental treats.