Why Do Dogs Like to Eat Feces? Unveiling the Unique Eating Habits of Animals

I have always been curious about why dogs like to eat feces. Perhaps for them, the pleasure of consuming feces is unimaginable to us humans. Although humans enjoy trying various strange foods, we almost never choose to eat feces. Why don’t humans eat feces? Because we consider them to be smelly. So, why do feces have a bad smell? Objectively speaking, are feces really smelly?

In fact, the so-called “stench” is just a human subjective perception. Feces are merely a pile of chemical substances, or a series of complex molecules. Objectively, there is no absolute standard for “smelly” or “not smelly” because the human digestive system cannot absorb the nutrients in feces and may even be poisoned by some old feces. Therefore, the brain’s feedback to this substance is that it is repulsive.

However, dogs are different; they can absorb a large amount of high-quality nutrients from it, so a dog’s brain will regard it as a delicacy, thereby generating the desire to eat. After all, who can refuse a fragrant meal? In fact, not only dogs, but feces are also a “hard dish” in the diet of many animals.

Due to the digestion process, our bodies usually cannot absorb all the nutrients in food, so a considerable amount of nutrients will be mixed in feces and excreted. Even some herbivores leave one-third of the nutrients in their feces. Therefore, dung beetles and flies almost entirely depend on feces for survival.

A dog’s sense of smell is more than a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans, able to easily identify the nutrients in fresh feces. These nutrients contain vitamins and enzymes that dogs crave. Therefore, if a dog is hungry at that moment, it naturally won’t miss such a delicacy; even if it’s not hungry, it’s still a good snack option.

Although dogs eating feces can supplement their lack of nutrients, some feces may contain a large number of viruses and bacteria, so it is advised to try to have your dog eat less feces.