[This update is only a change of the name of the post from "Poop smells like...?" to "Dog poop should smell like...." So many readers are asking the question and they can't find the post. I'm just making it easier for them. Thanks, Darcie]
Dear Darcie, So what should my dog’s excrement smell and look like? I never thought of checking that before to see how’s she’s feeling. Thanks, Alex.
Dear Alex,
I know! Doesn’t it seem strange that we don’t know the very basics about our bodies and our dog’s bodies? The first thing your doctor tells you when you go into the office is, “Pee in this cup”. They know that our pee will tell them volumes! Nobody ever told us about sniffing ourselves so we’d know, too. Common sense, though, isn’t it. Well, here you go. A sniffing lesson.
Here’s a tip for your and for your dog’s health. I’ll try to use a little potty humor to make it more palatable for those who don’t even like to think about doing something like this. I have a thirteen year old grandson, raised boys, and have a few guys in my life. I know a thing or two about potty humor.
When you’re feeling good, sniff your own pee. Know what your poop looks and smells like. Write it down if you have a bad memory. When you feel bad, do the same thing. There is a big difference in the urine and the feces between sick and well and in the changing from one to another. You can smell it in a fart, too. Or someone else’s. “Man, I don’t know what crawled up there, but it’s dead.” You’ll know when you’re catching cold or flu so you can get ready for it, you may recognize when something more serious has started, too. You’ll learn to know right away when your body is changing from healthy to sick if you pay attention.
Men can often tell when something isn’t right by the smell or look of their pee or how it feels coming out. Know before the problem raises it’s head, so to speak.
Women often need to be a little more vigilant than men and of course, check a little deeper than just pee and poo. If they know their body, they’ll catch infections faster and get treatment if necessary before the problem changes the mood. Yes, ladies, we know that our plumbing isn’t the same as the mens, don’t we? We tend to have more to cope with “down there”. It’s no fault of ours. God made us this way. I’ve taken it up with Him a few times in my life. The last was about fifteen years ago, it was a long, hot, Harley ride. Enough said, I’m sure. BG
Do it for your dogs, too.
Digestive upsets, depression, headache, spinal misalignment, pregnancy, infection, stress…they all show up as odor and shape in our excreted materials and in our breath.
Get a leg up on your dog’s health. Know before the dog starts showing you signs that something isn’t just right.
Sniff the poop once a week. You were picking it up anyway. Pick up with a clear baggie, break it apart. Look for worms or that quarter or string that your dog ate about 24 hours ago. Take a sniff. Poop should have very little odor when it’s healthy. When your dog is sick, it’s going to have a rotten odor or smell like a bad chemical. There are more smells than I can write in a simple post but you’ll figure it out. Bad is bad.
Pee should be clear or very light colored yellow. Clear is better. Good healthy pee smells a lot like water that’s a little off. It smells “nice”. You’ll see what I mean when you smell healthy pee. Bad pee smells like ammonia, chemicals, again, there are lots of odors for bad. Pee is easy to catch in a cup if you’re a good catcher. Your dog might look at you funny but they’ll get used to it.
Does your dog’s body smell good? Sniff right at the top of your dog’s shoulders. Does it smell like she’s just had a bath but she didn’t? Or stinky? “PU, get away from me, Dog.” A healthy dog’s body should smell nice and clean. It’s amazing to me that most people don’t know that. “But he’s a dog. Dogs smell, well, ‘doggy’, don’t they?” Huh uh. Dogs who are healthy and eat a good diet, smell wonderful. Our dogs don’t get bathed unless they roll in something nasty. They always smell good unless there’s a health issue. Knowing a smell change can help you catch disease, infection, and worry much faster, before it becomes a real issue.
Breath. Bad breath of any kind other than smelling like fish or garlic or anything like that because they just ate some, is a bad sign. Check teeth and gums. Bad breath can be dirty teeth, stress, depression, gum disease, broken teeth, or even something bad going on in your dog’s digestive system or somewhere else in the body. Check your dog’s teeth weekly. Look for breaks, loose teeth, decay, chips. Press the gums, are they pink, are they black, are they too soft, are they firm and a good color? You’ll know when they change if you get in there every week.
You can clean your dog’s teeth yourself. Get some dental tools from your dentist so you can take the tartar off. Sit down and make a nice afternoon out of it. A little at a time, no need to keep their mouth wide open for five minutes at a time, open, clean for a minute, close. Get way back into those back teeth. Praise and love. Be careful not to scrape the tooth, just take the tarter off, it’s kind of like taking the coating off of an M&M candy. Be really careful. It’s easy, once you do it you’ll know. When we first got Bruno, he was three years old and had never had his teeth cared for. On the third day he was with us, he laid down in my lap, opened his mouth, and let me clean his teeth. Then we brushed gently. Man, there was a lot of tartar on his teeth and I swear that when he got up, he was running his tongue over his teeth like he didn’t even know he had teeth before. You can do it with your dog, too. If your dog won’t let you into the mouth for a good cleaning and you’re not interested in training that, do see your vet for a cleaning. Puppies should always be trained from day one to open and let you inspect. Rescue dogs come with baggage and sometimes that’s a different story. Dental care is so important, get it done whatever way you have to. A good diet is the best defense against tooth and gum disease.
What you feed your dog has a lot to do with what you smell and see. If you’re feeding one of what I like to call the bad dog foods with corn and other processed grains including processed, added vitamins and little to no nutrition for your dog, the poop will be a big yucky soft mass of stink, kind of what you’d see a cow leave behind. Gosh, really, corn fed cows, corn fed dogs. Same thing? If you’ve never seen a cow make a pie…if they go on a rock or a hard floor…it splashes. And it sti…inks!
Dogs who eat a good diet will have harder, smaller poop and it doesn’t smell bad at all. If there’s sufficient bone in it, it will turn white in the sun and disappear after a hard rain. (Don’t wait for rain, please pick up and dispose immediately after your dog every time he goes. That’s another health issue altogether.) When you break poop from a raw fed dog, it turns to powder in your baggie. That’s so cool to see. It means that your dog got the nutrition from the food, all that’s left is the debris. It should be a little bit hard for them to pass a turd, it helps to express their anal glands. So you don’t have to!
If eating the bad foods, pee might be darker yellow to orange and stink like a boy’s urinal. It will burn your yard. Dark yellow to orange can also mean your dog isn’t drinking enough water, another tell tale sign of possible trouble.
Not all disease and illness come directly related to foods, it can be genetics, hereditary issues. But more and more I think we’re finding that it does have so much to do with food.
It just doesn’t make sense that we won’t feed our dogs the way Nature intended for them to eat. We want them to be healthy and happy and live a long time. Not sick and depressed while eating something resembling food that somebody cooked up and put into a bag.
Like I always say, “Nature intended for dogs to eat raw food or they’ve have pockets for their matches.” And yes, opposable thumbs, too. That said, if you don’t want to go the raw route, please feed the best food that you can.
It’s your decision. Spend your money to pad the pockets of the bad dog food guys and keep paying your vet to try to figure out what’s wrong with your dog. Or feed your dogs to health and save your wallet.
Smell your dog. It’s the first line of defense in health.
(Of course, this is all just my opinion and experience. For what it’s worth, I like clean, healthy pee and poop and I don’t care who catches me sniffing up after my dogs. Thanks for listening.)
Wow, this was a really excellent post. In hypothesis I’d like to compose like this too – taking time and real effort to make a good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate a lot and never seem to get something done.
EXCELLENT post and through answer…sounds like you are very familiar with your animals….i am too… you are so right it will save you lots of money and time in the long run. I am a strong believer on smell and your answers were absolutely positively right on. Thanks for taking the time to correctly break things down and answer each area throughly and accurately.
My pooch has dragon breadth. My vet is happy to charge $00.00 plus to clean his teeth. about $100.00 to knock him out, someone to watch, the vet fees, although it may cost more up to $100.00 more. I read of a vet in California who cleans teeth without anesthesia, we spoke, but I’m in Texas. I will try you tip on cleaning his teeth. He is very easy to handle all parts, He has very short legs, i will try to figure out how to do a catch. I check poop each time. twice I saw a thin rice ,very thin, not moving, a few times. It is gone now. I changed dog food, small amounts, though sometimes had pfhlem, greennie evidence, but not white. C
– Darcy
Dear C, Raw fed dog poop turns white within several hours of being pooped out. If you’re cleaning it up right away, as we all should be, you won’t see it turn white. It’s not white coming out of the dog. Just thought I’d clarify that.
Eris is my 5 year old 150 lb Great Dane / Mastiff mix. I feed her raw about 1/2 the time, otherwise high quality dog food. I ran into a good sale on chicken quarters (leg & thigh) in have been feeding her 1 quarter twice a day. If I come up with an uneven number of quarters in the bag, I’ll cut the last one in half to share with the other dog, a large rescued greyhound. Yesterday while cleaning the yard I found a perfectly whole thigh bone in her poop. My first thought was: “that had to hurt!” But my second thought was worry. I’m betting she swallowed the thigh whole because it wasn’t attached to a leg. Is this a cause for concern? Kelley
Dear Kelley, Thigh bones are pretty big. Some dogs can eat and digest them and some dogs can’t. Some dogs chew them all up, some dogs won’t. Your girl passed it so that’s good. Wings, necks and backs are the tops in my raw chicken book. Hope that helps. – Darcie
Why does my dogs poop smell like the food he eats? Does this mean that he isn’t getting what he needs out of his food. He is obese–Maybe his digestion be off. Carol Albins
Dear Carol, What food are you feeding him? – Darcie
My maltese eats venison and rice, its the only thing she can eat without getting sick, since shes been on this food, her poop is small solid and doesn’t smell. once a few weeks ago i went to pick it up and it was very pungent. I have been very worried, because the smell was comforting, or relaxing, and did not smell bad to me. have you ever heard of this
Thank-you M Cory.
M, I don’t know what you mean. Try again. – Darcie
i mean im worried about why it was a relaxing smell, for that moment, i feel crazy. i have ocd and an over sensitive to all stimuli .almost like a high , like a cigar, or cigerette, or anything normally repulsive
Great article. Very helpful.
I have a 4 month old St. Bernard pup.I feed him 2 meals(breakfast + lunch) of 1 and a half cup each Royal Canin Giant Puppy + 2 eggs and one (dinner) meal of raw chicken (generally 2 wings) and once a week I trade it with organ meat (goat liver).The problem is that his poop smells really bad after his kibble meals and he is always eager to eat the poop. I have consulted the Vet. He just says that he’ll grow out of it eventually. My puppy has had all his vaccinations done and is being dewormed per his schedule. Please suggest what can be the cause and what I can do to resolve the problem of his bad odour stool.
Also am I feeding him enough? Thanks alot. Bhanu
Dear Bhanu, It doesn’t sound like he’s getting enough food. I usually base amounts on body weight. Our puppies will eat 10% of their body weight in raw food and bones a day. An adult will eat 2%. I’d guess the smell is from the dog food and it could be partly from the medication or worms. Raw food will change poop to the smell it should have, none. Dogs who eat poop must be followed by people who have poop bags. Pick it up, he more than likely will not grow out of it. – Darcie
Thanks alot Darcie.
I’d be grateful to you if you could educate me about the raw diet.I can only feed him chicken and goat meat.Please help me out with how to go about it.He weighs over 25 kgs so I understand that I need to feed him 2.5 kgs of meat. I would appreciate if you could tell me in detail how I can plan his meals , what pieces/cuts I should give in a single meal keeping in mind the limited choices I have.
My vet is not helping me out.He just wants me to buy the kibble which is costing me more than I spend on my meals and not doing great for my baby. – Bhanu
Dear Bhanu, Please click on the Feeding category here at The Dish, read all posts. There is a lot of information already here for you without my having to post it all again. Let me know if you have any specific questions that haven’t already been answered in comments to my posts. I can help you with those. Thanks. – Darcie
Dear Darcie, I have been to many a vets about my soon to be 5 year old female Lab. About 2 years ago this july she just woke up sick with diarrhea. I looked on the interent to see if was something I could help her overcome first at home. After a week of ups and downs. I finally took her to the vet where they tryed medication, different dog food. Shes had x-rays, urine analysis, blood test, fecal smeres. You name it. She went from 92lbs to 74lbs in about 4 months. She would eat and 30 mins later is was on its way out of her. We are 2 years later and still no diagnosis. My husband and I have spent close to $3000 in vet bills and High quality dog foods that she will just out right refuse to eat. Only for the last 3 months has she actually been digesting some of her food. Just one day i decided to give her a wet dog food cause nothing else was working and she was starving. An for the first time in a long time I saw a little hard poop! She has put on weight this last 2 months and has contiued with hard poops but still kinda soft and really moist. I haven’t fed her a raw diet because I was told she is told old to switch. Any insights for me or advice? Cause its very smelly and you still just have this feeling that she isn’t quite right yet. Thank you in advance! Jess
Dear Jess, If she was mine and I’d just adopted her with this problem, I would put her on a raw food diet. It’s strange that the vets can’t find anything wrong but that’s not uncommon these days. More and more, even in my own town, people are bringing me dogs that the vets don’t know why they are sick. Check something in the ingredient list of your old food. Does it have Carageenan in it? That can cause digest upset and some real problems in some dogs and in people, too. I like raw. I find that when we feed out dogs the way Nature intends for them to eat, they get better and in many cases they get well. I wish your girl wellness and you peace. – Darcie
Thanks so much for the info! As the Lady of the house I am the sole smeller/inspector of all things, so when I noticed that our chocolate lab/pit bull mix, Coco had extremely hard, bright yellow poop I became concerned. We had just switched her to Pedigree food (a horrible decision, I know). I’m hoping that was the problem. Yesterday we changed to Newman’s Own Organics and I hope to see and smell better poop in the days to come. Do you think all of the corn based products and the bone crap in the Pedigree could have made her poop so hard and yellow? I certain value your opinion! Thanks! – Brandi
Dear Brandi, You can be certain of it. – Darcie