Gross Dog Habits: Why your dog chooses to eat out of the kitty litter!

We've all seen it. Your dog is comfortably wandering through your yard, stopping to sniff a good smell, pounce on a grass hopper, bark at the person walking by with their dog, and then it happens: you witness your dog eating its own waste.  EW!

And dogs don't seem to be limited to that - they'll eat another dog's waste, horse or cow manure, or even help themselves to the kitty litter.  Then they come running to see you and try to kiss your face.  Yes, you should all be cringing right now.  But, believe it or not, there's a reason for this.

Of all the domestic animals, dogs actually have the shortest digestive tract.  It is, in fact, too short for them to have time to absorb all of the nutrients they need.  Your dog could eat the best food available to them, but between the vitamin and probiotic loss from the food extrusion process (in manufacturing) and their own short digestive tracts, they come up nutrient shy! 

So why do our dogs appear to stay fairly healthy then? Well, nature opted to have dogs know to return to their own waste, or the waste of another and to eat it.  Then, the second time the waste is heading through the digestive tract, all those nutrients (especially B Vitamins) the dog couldn't get the first time around are actually digestible.  The dog has created a way to gain "highly available,” or easily digestible, nutrients. 

How can you stop your dog from eating waste?  Stopping waste eating is a very hard thing to do once they've started because they are creatures of habit and the next thing you know, a visit to the kitty litter becomes a game!  First, don't discipline your dog because they're only doing what instinct requires of them.  Instead, manage it by reducing the opportunity. But, in the process of locking away the kitty litter, you'll need to give your dog an alternative source of nutrients. 

Find a dog supplement that serves as a multi-vitamin with highly available nutrients to replace what your dog isn't getting from animal waste anymore.  Highly-available nutrients are easy to absorb the first time through the dog's digestive tract!

The added bonus?  If you get a dog supplement that includes key bacterium controls like selenium yeast and bacillus subtilis, you'll watch those eye infections, ear infections, dry skin and allergies decline, too!