Coprophagia is defined as the consumption of faeces by an animal and is a common complaint of owners to their veterinarians. Since there has been little research done on this particular behaviour, the veterinarian is usually poorly equipped to give a recommendation to the owner. This study is intended to provide epidemiological information about the incidence of the behaviour in the canine population, the age of onset, age of disappearance, and various other pieces of information crucial to form a basis from which to study this very important behaviour.
Proposed Causes
Coprophagia may result due to various medical problems. Primary among them are exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, pancreatitis, intestinal infections, malabsorptive syndromes, and over-feeding (especially high fat content diets). However, with the majority of these conditions, many other signs beside the Coprophagia will be prominent, particularly diarrhoea. Coprophagia is usually only a small aspect of these medical conditions.
There have been a variety of behavioural theories put forth as to why canines engage in Coprophagia. It is important at this time to define different kinds of Coprophagia. Autocoprophagia deals with an animal eating its own faeces. Intraspecific Coprophagia deals with an animal eating faeces from another animal within its own species. Interspecific Coprophagia deals with an animal eating faeces from another species (dog eating cat, deer, rabbit, etc faeces). Several behavioural explanations of Coprophagia are discussed below.
Attention-seeking behaviour: When the dog engages in Coprophagia, their owner tends to reprimand them and, therefore, pay attention to the animal. This may be a sequellae to a medical condition which brought about the Coprophagia initially and, now that the medical condition has cleared, the animal continues to engage in Coprophagia in order to get attention from the owner. This is unlikely in well-treated animals, however, because they will likely get all the attention they need without having to draw negative attention to themselves. This is being examined in our study.
Allelomimetic behaviour: The dog observes the owner picking up the faeces and learns from them to do so as well.
Learned behaviour: The dog observes other dogs engaging in Coprophagia and mimics their activity, thus 'learning' it from other dogs within the household or those living nearby. This begs the question as to what started the first dog to engage in Coprophagia. This is being examined in our study.
Maternal behaviour: A bitch with puppies will often engage in Coprophagia, and this behaviour is normal. There are many theories as to why the bitch does this, including keeping the den clean and preventing the scent of the faeces from attracting predators. This is being examined in our study.
Dominance behaviour: There have been reports of a submissive dog consuming the faeces of one or more dominant dogs in the same household. There are other examples in nature where the submissive members of a group participate in apparently bizarre behaviours. This is being examined in our study.
Reinforcement: Something about eating the faeces itself reinforces the behaviour. Things such as taste may be a factor in this. It's simply appealing to the dog to eat the faeces, so it does so. This is the likely mechanism in interspecific Coprophagia such as eating cat faeces.
Feeding behaviour: Many people feed their dogs only once per day. Some postulate that dogs naturally want to have multiple meals throughout the day, hence they use Coprophagia to supplement their feeding schedule and fulfil this need. This is being examined in our study.