While raising a glass...

[heathfield]

My local is a pub that welcomes dogs, as well as their owners. The other night, one of the regulars asked those present, "How come you never see white dog poo any more?"
This halted the conversation. But on pondering the question we all realised he was right! None of us had seen it for years. Once upon a time it would be everywhere. We realise it must be down to some change in the diet, but what?
Any ideas?

[shaneystar2]

We used to feed dogs more raw bones years ago .The calcium in the bones made the poop white.You very rarely see people asking for a bone for their dog in the butchers these days since the advent of all these different types of dog food and dog owners are more aware these days of the damage a bone can do.Splinters in the teeth and intestines and so on.

[Ethel]

shaneystar2 is perfectly correct.

Except I believe that the BSE crisis some years ago changed dogs eating habits. Butchers were no longer allowed to give away the marrow and so on that people had fed their dogs on.

No doubt it was removed from commercial pet food too.

As an incidental, but interesting point, in the series Life on Mars there was white dog leavings on the pavement when the 1970s were portrayed.

[gen2]

The subject has been covered several times before

see

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Questio n205589.html

and

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Animals_and_Nat ure/Question131542.html

[sophie_1003]

I'd heard it was something to do with dog food having ash in it...seemed a bit odd to me! And they don't put ash in dog food anymore.

[heathfield]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Makes sense. And ta especially, gen2 - so keen to post that I missed those links!