The cold temperatures and snow are here early this year
(nooooo!), and along with them comes a very unwanted canine behavior at my
household – poopsicle eating. Pepper the
Pomeranian mix has the lovely habit of snacking on other dogs’ frozen poo
(luckily she only tends to do this with frozen deposits, so I get a seasonal
reprieve). As I witnessed this behavior
in the yard today, it started me thinking on all the ways we can influence our
dogs’ behavior. I’m going to run through
some of the options for this particular behavior, but really, you can ask
yourself some of the same questions with any undesirable behavior:
1. Is there potentially a medical concern? While there are many debates on the causes of
coprophagia (eating of stool), some involving dietary deficiencies, Pepper
seems to be in very good health otherwise.
2. Can I live with this behavior? Yes.
She does not eat poo to the point of making herself sick, so occasional
snacking is really not doing any harm, although I do find it unpleasant. I would like the behavior to stop, but if it
doesn’t, life will still go on.
3. Can I manage the environment to prevent it
from happening? Yes. I could immediately pick up after the other
dogs (she is especially fond of husky poo).
However, I am unlikely to comply fully with this strategy, especially
when it is very cold outside.
4. Can I remove the reinforcement? I could use one of several food additives on
the market designed to make the husky stool taste bad (ridiculous as it sounds
it must currently taste good to Pepper).
5. Can I reinforce an incompatible behavior? Yes, Pepper does have a “leave it” cue, as
well as a good recall, so as long as I am supervising, I can reward her for
staying away from it (and I can supervise from inside the house, making my
compliance better in the cold). I could
also give her better things to do outside, like chasing snowballs or searching
for bits of dog food.
For this particular behavior, I will likely combine a bit
from each strategy. I will try to pick
up the yard as often as I can, and failing that, I will supervise Pepper when
she is out, and use her “leave it” cue or her recall to reinforce her for
resisting the poopsicles. One thing I
will try not to do is yell her name
in an irritated manner. It’s a bad habit
of mine (despite warning all my students in training classes about it), and
while it may work to get her to stop eating the poo, it may also make her more
likely to avoid me when I am calling her name to get her attention. It also doesn’t give her any direction as to
what to do next. Instead, I can use a
“leave it” cue, which tells her that she will be rewarded for backing away from
the snack.
Do you have a problem behavior you’re trying to
eliminate? Excellent resources for
thinking through your options include “Don’t Shoot the Dog” by Karen Pryor, and
“The Toolbox for Remodeling Your Problem Dog” by Terry Ryan.
Happy Training!