Coprophagic dogs are bad enough. Still, there may be some benefit to fecal microbial transplantation to aid in adjusting the microbiome of our canine friends. And we thought veterinary nurses had it bad enough doing stool floats!
This area of microbiome science is advancing, so we share the information with you for your consideration before a dog owner comes to you with a bag of fecal material from his neighbor’s healthy dog.
Source: Whole Dog Journal, February 2018.
The necessary ingredients for a successful fecal transplant are a healthy donor and a method for transferring material from donor to patient. There are not yet any commonly accepted guidelines for canine donors, though of course health is an obvious concern. While there are no clinical trials proving any of the following claims, veterinarians who use FMT believe that it does far more than repair a dog’s digestion.
Also see: Why dogs eat poop, The Bark, January 2018. Karen B. London, PhD, shares new research on this revolting behavior.