My Dog Eats Poop and That's Okay

My husband and I have to be very careful when our Chocolate Lab, Derby, tries to kiss us. For some reason (I read up on it hundreds of times and have yet to feel like any of Google's reasons are legit, at least for our girl specifically) she eats her sister's poop. She doesn't eat her own poop. She doesn't eat her Golden Doodle friend's poop. She only eats Boomer's poop. It is absolutely disgusting and completely unavoidable. If we try to catch her, she grabs the piece of poop and runs away with it, then devours it in a corner of the yard. Sometimes she doesn't even wait until Boomer is finished with her bathroom task before swooping in under Boom's tail and taking the product, fresh from the source.

Obviously, this is super gross. And it means that we have to warn people because no one wants a puppy kiss that smells like crap. She loves giving kisses, too. It breaks my heart to turn down this classic dog sign of affection when I just saw her snag a snack from the yard, but I also don't want to have smelly poop particles on my skin. No. We try to break her of this and we hope she grows out of it. But until then, I have learned a lesson about my furry baby's disgusting habit.

So, she eats poop. It isn't ideal of course, but I also find myself thinking lately that in some way or another, we all eat poop. We all have bad habits. Maybe we depend on coffee too much, maybe we smoke, maybe we bite our nails, maybe we are procrastinators. These habits aren't ideal. Generally, we wish we could break them, conquor them. But, although we see these "bad" habits as weaknesses, they do not define us and they do not make US "bad".


A family friend of mine has a young dog. This dog does not eat poop. However, this dog is hyper as heck, rarely calms down, and playfully but very painfully bites people all the time. She still does the crazy puppy biting mess even though she is no longer a puppy. You can barely pet her because she is trying to bite you every three seconds and running around like a psycho. This made me think about how I wouldn't trade Derby's weird poop-eating habit for anything. Because sure it is gross but she is the friendliest, most loveable, sweetest, snuggliest girl. She doesn't bite people up like chew toys and isn't annoying, spazzy, or unfriendly. She brings so much joy to Daniel and I (and her sister, sometimes). She loves to play, LOVES visitors, and is fantastic with other dogs. They're our whole world. What else could you want?


Nothing. You couldn't find a better dog than her. I would choose to keep her poop-eating habit again and again and again if it meant she could keep her fantastic personality. Habits can be changed. It can take awhile, but they can. Personality though, is permanent. It is okay to have quirks or flaws, as we all do, as long as you are a good person, a kind person, a loving person (or puppy).