The term 'pica' describes craving and subsequent eating of non-food items by a dog. It is a medical issue where the dog has urge to consume foreign substances from dirt, rocks, concrete, glass, coins, gravel, clay, rubber tires, and a host of other non-food objects. Coprophagia describes eating and ingestion of feces.
While mostly, there is no underlying medical condition responsible for pica and coprophagia, sometimes there is. Pica is usually due to a nutritional imbalance or deficiency of some sort.
There are medical treatment as well as behavioral modification techniques that can help treat these two conditions in dogs.
The most common and obvious symptom for pica and coprophagia is the dog eating non-food items as well as feces of its own or other animals.
