Posts tagged "poop"

Amy D. Shojai is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books, including "Complete Kitten Care" and "Complete Care for Your Aging Cat."

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We love our cats but don't always understand their seemingly bizarre behaviors. Sure, some things our cats do are unique to them but other actions are shared by felines the world over. Here are seven weird cat behaviors, and what they mean.

Head bonks. The first three months I had my cat, her head turned pink from head-bonking my lipstick. Rubbing behavior, which includes the forehead, cheeks, and full-body slams, is called bunting, and it transfers the cat's signature smell onto objects to mark territory. That means head bonks are kitty compliments declaring you to be so important, he's marked you as his personal property.

Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife Anna adopted as a puppy in late 2009.

Anna wrote this week's column.

Ben and I may live in the suburbs, but we don't have our own enclosed yard for Pippi to do her business. Instead, we give her plenty of walks around the neighborhood, to give her the opportunity for what I like to call her "daily constitutionals."

Ben is pretty disciplined about keeping Pippi on the sidewalk, but I often let her sniff around front lawns, under hedges and along tree-trunks. She just seems to love being outside so much; her tail whips to and fro when she finds a scent she likes!

Sometimes, nature calls when Pippi's in someone's yard. Considering I quickly swoop in to pick it up with a plastic bag, however, I never really thought of this as a nuisance. Until last week, that is. Pippi had just eliminated on the curb a few minutes earlier, when a woman from next door began pulling out of her driveway.

Meet Mary Burch, American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen Director and Paw Nation's expert columnist addressing your questions on animal behavior. Dr. Burch has over 25 years of experience working with dogs, and she is one of fewer than 50 Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists based in the United States. She is the author of 10 books, including the new official book on the AKC Canine Good Citizen Program, "Citizen Canine: 10 Essential Skills Every Well-Mannered Dog Should Know."

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I've heard that you can train a puppy to urinate and poop on command. Is that true? I am about to start visiting shelters to adopt a dog, and want to know how I would go about this sort of training.

Standing in the rain or the snow waiting for your dog to do his business is one of the more annoying aspects of dog ownership. Which is why teaching your dog to respond to the command "go pee" is handy when you need the dog to hurry, lift its leg on a nearby bush, and get back in the house. Likewise, training your dog to move its bowels on command is convenient for selecting an appropriate place when you are out in public.

Surprisingly, this skill isn't as hard to teach as you might think. You just have to break it down into steps -- there are five here -- and patiently take your dog through them. The process works the same way for both urination and defecation, but don't try to teach both at the same time. Once your dog has learned to respond to one of the commands, repeat the steps for the other. Here's what you should try:

1. Do Basic House Training: The first step is to teach your dog to "go" outside so that he isn't having accidents in the house.

2. Create a Predictable Schedule: Put your dog on a regular feeding and exercise program so that you know roughly when he will need to defecate.

3. Learn When Your Dog Needs To Relieve Himself: Observe your dog to determine its normal schedule for relieving its bowels.

Rounding up our favorite animal stories, photos, and videos on the Web each week!

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  Zebras: Hippo Dentists?

  A Zebra DDS recently used its mouth to give a teeth cleaning to a hippo. Gives a new definition to "open wide." [via Dailymail.co.uk]

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  Iditarod Reunion

  Hearts were warmed in Alaska's icy climate when a sled-dog that had been missing for four days was reunited with his worried owner. [via Dogster]

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  Flying Fish

  It's raining fish! Hallelujah, it's raining fish! In Worcester, England, a live fish fell from the sky and was rescued. [via People Pets]

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  Poop-Scoopers Unite!

  A new Chicago blog is taking on those who don't pick up after their dogs in public places. The next step? Poop-scooping superheros. [via Southloopdogpoop]>

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  Dunking Doggy Debacle

  In this video, The Onion "reports" on the scandal that broke out over recruiting a basketball playing dog into the NCAA. [via The Onion]

Meet Mary Burch, American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen Director and Paw Nation's new expert columnist addressing your questions on animal behavior.

Dr. Burch has over 25 years of experience working with dogs and she is one of less than 50 Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists based in the United States. She is the author of nine books, more than 200 articles and has been a lobbyist on legislation concerning hazardous dogs and responsible dog ownership.

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Dear Dr. Burch,
My dog has a disturbing habit -- he eats his own poop! Why does he do this?

Dr. Burch Says: If there is a dog behavioral issue that makes us cringe, it's when dogs eat their own waste. We're talking about when the dog eats his own or another dog's poop.

There are several reasons dogs eat feces. A few of the most common reasons include:

A Nutritional Deficiency: When there are inadequate nutrients in a dog's food, he feels hungry and eats whatever is readily available. Nutrients can be depleted as a result of parasites like tapeworms. Not enough or too much food can cause the nutritional deficiencies that result in coprophagia, the consumption of feces. Too much food, especially for puppies, can cause diarrhea that depletes nutrients. If there is a period of time that dogs are starving and they eat feces to survive, like some feral dogs, they may develop this hard-to-break habit.

A Desire to Clean House: Dogs like to be clean. When confined in dirty crates or small areas, some dogs will eat their feces to clean the area. Dams (mother dogs) will often eat poop to keep their puppies clean. When puppies are newborns, dams lick them to provide stimulation that results in urinating and defecating.

A Need for Self-stimulation: Dogs who are bored will sometimes eat feces simply to have something to do. Confinement combined with neglect can cause maladaptive behaviors like eating feces. Some dogs are copy-cats (or copy-dogs, as the case may be) and they will join in if other dogs in the household are providing waste management services in the backyard. Training is a good tool for managing this behavior. A reliable "come" and "leave it!" will help prevent the problem in instances where the dog finds something before you do. Your veterinarian can talk to you about nutrition and the appropriate food for your dog.

Basically, the main reason dogs eat poop is because it's there. If your dogs are eating feces when they're in the backyard, remember, they can't eat it if it's not around. Do some quick patrolling and cleaning of your yard before the dogs go out.

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Do you have an animal behavior question for Dr. Burch? E-mail your questions to mary@pawnation.com.

If you find yourself wondering what Poop-Freeze is, stop. You're thinking way too hard. I'll give you a hint: it freezes poop -- and not the solid kind.

Does your dog have diarrhea, loose stools (not the kinds from Ikea), or does he just eat too much fruit? Then Poop-Freeze is for you. Just spray it on and use your ice-tongs to move the offending poop wherever you please.

One small problem: Poop-Freeze doesn't seem to work. After some painstaking research on Amazon, I found that, although Poop-Freeze had a whopping sixteen reviews, nearly all that were above one star were, shall we say, less-than-serious. The majority consensus seemed to be that while Poop-Freeze chills dung, Mr. Freeze would not be its spokesperson

Why, Poop-Freeze? Why don't you work?

Most of the one-star reviews said the same thing: The product is supposed to bring the surface temperature of poop down to -62°F, however, since a loose, liquidy stool (ew!) is mostly water, it would take minutes to completely freeze, requiring more than there is available in a single can. Thus, customers were left with unfrozen, albeit cold, poop. Back to the drawing board, boys!

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How many times have you enjoyed a cup of coffee only to find out it was brewed from cat poop? Well, okay, maybe not that often, but if you live in the Fort Myers, Florida area, it won't be such a rare occurrence after Sept. 29.

To celebrate National Coffee Day, Bennett's Fresh Roast coffee shop will for one day sell the world's most expensive coffee, Kopi Luwak, informally known as "cat-poop coffee."

Harvested exclusively from a collection of South-Asian nations, including the Philippines, Indonesia, and, of course, Java, Kopi Luwak coffee beans pass through the digestive tract of an animal called a civet, which eats the sweet berries that contain the beans, but cannot digest the beans themselves.

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