Perhaps the most disgusting and perplexing question a dog owner can ask themselves is why their dog eats their own turd!

Well...stool eating, also known as Coprophagia in dogs can be caused by several factors:

• To get attention from their owners.
• From anxiety, stress, or having been punished for bad behaviors.
• From boredom.
• In an attempt to clean up in crowded conditions.
• When dogs observe their owners picking up feces, and imitate this behavior (allelomimetic behavior). This is highly improbable because the behaviour has also been observed in environments where owners never picked up the dog's (or other) feces.
• Because puppies taste everything and discover that feces are edible and, perhaps, tasty, especially when fed a high fat content diet.
• Because dogs are, by nature, scavengers, and this is within the range of scavenger behavior.
• To prevent the scent from attracting predators, especially mother dogs eating their offspring's feces.
• Because the texture and temperature of fresh feces approximates that of regurgitated food, which is how canine mothers in the wild would provide solid food.
• Because of the protein content of the feces (particularly cat feces), or over-feeding, leading to large concentrations of undigested matter in the feces.
• Due to assorted health problems, including: Pancreatitis; Intestinal infections; Food allergies, creating mal-absorption
• Because they are hungry, such as when eating routines are changed, food is withheld, or nutrients are not properly absorbed.

Another theory proposes that carnivores sometimes eat the feces of their prey in order to ingest and exude scents which camouflage their own.

Several companies produce food additives that can be added to the troublesome animal's food to make its feces taste excessively bad.

What can you do about it?

It depends entirely on which of the above reasons is causing your dog's behavour. If it's your fault they could be doing it to to avoid dealing with your response to it, especially if your toilet training has involved punishing the dog for defecating

Also, review your house-breaking techniques - are you being consistent, fair and structured in your approach to house training? Also, try changing their diet as this will most probably solve the problem.