Why do french bulldogs eat their poop

Seeing your dog is eating poop is probably the worst scene you can ever imagine. This disgusting behavior can be triggered by several reasons, so let’s discover why does your French bulldog eat poop.

Attractive scent

Otherwise known as coprophagia, the compulsive eating of poop often happens during a young age. The puppies’ poop smells strong because of the food proteins that haven’t been digested well. Therefore, the puppy becomes attracted and decides to eat it again. Even though this sounds like the worst-case scenario, there’s actually a reason for such behavior. Most puppies have weak digestive systems and don’t completely finish the digestion process until releasing the stool.

Traumatic experience

Teaching a puppy a good potty behavior is challenging both for you and your pet. In order to escape any traumatic experiences in your dog, you should act very carefully toward your pet. Punishing and yelling are not allowed because it will only cause your dog to feel stressed and traumatized about going to the potty. And when the mess happens at home, your dog will eat his poop just to hide the ‘crime scene’. That’s how he will think that he’ll escape punishment and yelling.

Maternal care

If a Frenchie mom still lives with her puppies in the crate, she will eat the poop of her kids to keep their living place clean. It’s one of the ways to prevent them from getting different diseases.

Puppy’s curiosity

One of the answers on the question ‘why does your French bulldog eat poop’ can be found in a dog’s curiosity. Puppies like to investigate their environment by sniffing and eating different items.

Boredom or stress

A French bulldog who suffers from separation anxiety will be on a higher tendency to eat his poop. There is no exact reason for such a behavior, but behavior specialists think that’s one of the ways to deal with stress. On the other hand, a bored dog will also suffer from coprophagia due to a lack of activity.

Why does your French bulldog eat poop? Prevention tips

• A magical pineapple

Even though pineapple represents a perfect summer snack for your Frenchie, the smell of this fruit in the poop will smell bad to your pet. Therefore, if your dog suffers from coprophagia, you can try to include a slice of pineapple to your French bulldog’s diet.

• French bulldog toys

If your dog eats poop due to boredom or stress, occupying his attention by toys can do a lot. You can use different interactive toys for French bulldogs because they include treats as a reward. Our suggestion is to have a look at the following interactive feeding mat.

• Coat stools

To prevent your dog from this awful behavior, you can coat the poop with a hot sauce or lemon juice. It can be one of the solutions to teach a dog to connect the feces with something unpleasant.

• Include fiber into your French bulldog’s diet

Feeding your Frenchie with a low-fiber diet because they smell good in food but awful in their feces. Pumpkin, apples, and other fruits and veggies that are high in fiber can help a lot.

• Keep your dog’s belly full

Although you should pay attention to your French bulldog’s weight, your dog needs to get a required amount of nutrients. An unbalanced diet and missing certain ingredients on the dog’s menu can trigger this condition. Therefore, make sure your dog gets enough vitamins and eats a healthy diet.

• March 12, 2019

We all know that dogs, in general, like to discover new places, objects, plants, and smells. However, eating poop definitely presents something not only insane but also disgusting. Maybe you haven’t heard for this, but this phenomenon happens very often in dogs.

So, why do French bulldogs eat poop?

Well, most dog owners would say that dogs do that because they are not conscious of what do they actually eat. Frenchies, like all other dog breeds, like to put their noses everywhere and their meaning of ‘haute cuisine’ is pretty different from ours. There’s even a scientific name for this kind of condition- it’s called COPROPHAGIA.

This statement has even become confirmed by hundreds of animal behaviorists. Dogs are carnivores that sometimes don’t know how to deal with hungriness, so the last solution is not to stay picky.

There are also many other reasons why would a Frenchie eat poop:

1- Parasites

A dog with stomach parasites simply begs for food all the time. To ‘plastically explain’ you, parasites take all the food, so there’s nothing left for a dog. That’s why it suddenly starts eating poop. Therefore, I advise you to regularly check your Frenchie’s stool and to take him to the vet any time you notice something strange is happening.

2- Diabetes and problems with thyroid

As in people, French bulldog can also suffer from diabetes. Unfortunately, diabetes brings many bad effects, such as losing or gaining weight. While some dogs refuse to eat, the others get an increased appetite. 

3- Long Steroid usage

Allergies present one of the most common health issues in French bulldogs. While some allergy types can be treated with different atopic gels and sprays and regular bathing, some serious cases require steroid treatment. Steroids can really help anyone, whether we talk about dogs or people, however, the long usage weakens the skin. Another side effect is the huge hunger. Steroids increase hunger, so your Frenchie can easily gain weight and start eating poop in the lack of food.

4- A lack of nutrition

It’s highly important to provide your Frenchie with multiple meals and healthy snacks. Since they’re famous as greedy eaters, the behavior of eating poop doesn’t surprise us much, is that right? A good feeding schedule will always keep your French bulldog away from this condition.

5- Anxiety

We all know that French bulldogs belong to companion dogs that implies the fact that they don’t like to be separated from their owners. Otherwise, they can easily become anxious and develop a condition called separation anxiety. So, in order to keep your little gremlin entertained while you’re out, I recommend you to buy him different interactive feeding toys. 

Another type of anxiety a Frenchie may develop in case he’s feeling scared of someone. For example, if you yell at him while you’re teaching him how and where to do a potty, he can make a conclusion that he’s doing something wrong. So, the only thing left is to eat his own poop in the end. 

How to stop a French bulldog from eating poop?

1- Using taste-aversion products

This way includes spraying your dog’s stool with some smell and taste that will not seem attractive to him. It’s usually garlic or onion drops/powder, lemon juice, chamomile oil or tea, parsley, yucca, and something spicey such as pepper.

2- Add different supplements to your Frenchie’ nutrition

Many dog owners have solved this problem by giving their Frenchies B complex of vitamins. Therefore, why not try it?

3- Training, training and only training

It might sound like a phrase, but training a dog seems like the best option for solving this bad behavior. Your Frenchie simply needs to learn that eating poop is something not allowed. However, I also suggest you not to punish him, because it may only cause fear and stubbornness in your lovely batpig.