Maltese behavior

Question
We have a Maltese that is about 4 months old (had her since she was 8 weeks).  The dog is always eating her poop and our westies poop. The vet gave us some stuff to sprinkle on the poop which worked for a while but does not seem to work anymore.  Is there anyway we can get her to stop eating poop?  I can not be with her all day to stop her from this because I work and I know she eats her poop when I'm not at home because one day when I came home she threw it back up.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Answer
This behavior is called coprophagia and there are several theories regarding the cause, some of which may contribute to a cure.  One theory is that the dog was malnourished as a puppy (not at all uncommon with popular breeds who are bred in puppy mill environments or by backyard breeders) and stool is a source of nutrition.  If this is the root cause of your dog's problem behavior, she will be demonstrating an eagerness or anxiety around her food bowl in terms of eating far too quickly and perhaps being possessive about food.  If the dog eats too quickly, the food is not being fully digested and is being eliminated while still "palatable" to the dog; if the dog's food is not a high enough quality nutritionally, this also can cause stool eating since the dog is trying to obtain adequate nutrition.  You may want to examine how your dog is eating (gulping it down, not eating well because the other dog is intimidating her, etc.) and take a good look at the nutritional quality of the food you are giving her.  A dry kibble high in nutrients is the best choice.  Another cause of coprophagia can be the owner's anger at the presence of stool during house training.  Some dogs will eat their stool to eliminate the evidence (and will eat any dog's stool for the same reason.)  The dog acquires a learned response that the presence of stool angers the owner and so removes the stool.  This is a very difficult behavior to extinguish.  It requires you clean up the stool the moment the dog(s) eliminate outdoors, sometimes very difficult, and of course if your dog eliminates when you are at work there's not much you can do.

There are several products available on the market to add to the dog food that will render the stool totally unpalatable to the dog.  It's said that giving a dog a piece of pineapple after every meal will render the stool unpalatable, so I suggest you try this method before any others since it does not involve chemicals.  Here's a link to a site that discusses coprophagia:
http://www.hilltopanimalhospital.com/copraphagia.htm