White Dog Poo?

[Mighty_Emperor]

People always refer to it as being some kind of strange phenomena but was it that widespread and has it really gone?

I do remember there being quite a lot of it being around in the eigthies but why would it disappear?

Some thoughts:

1. Some change in dog food? Unlikely.

2. Pavement fouling laws? The fines started to be introduced in the late eighties and this has drastically reduce the amount of dog crap, at least near me. Now I haven't exactly been experimenting with this but I recently removed the grass from the garden and replaced it with decking and in the heat I have noted some sneaky dog poos that I have missed in the clean up turn white when 'baked' so they are that odd chalky white colour. Is it just that there is less dog poo sitting around drying out on pavements? Also why would dog muck go white?

Thoughts?

[edit: And for those wondering what I am talking about:

http://www.80snostalgia.com/memories/whitedogpoo.html

http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/3654.html

http://www.b3ta.com/board/952321

http://www.shadowclad.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=16

http://forums.thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=126

esp:

http://www.geocities.com/poostix_uk/whitepoo.html

Hmmmm this seems to explain the issue:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=182

http://members.aol.com/abywood/www/poo.htm

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/ChalkWhite.html

but I doubt it is actually the bone content of what dogs eat as I know mine just eat ordinary dog food (Butcher's Tripe). And other explanations (some kind of dog food additive to change the colour back or pollution) are even worse.

Somehow I don't think I have got to the bottom of things

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh reading further down this post (beyond where it veers from white dog poo to BSE gives the answer - I think:

I understand that most poos generated by mammals consist of a chemical produced by the body called (excuse my spelling) billyruben. This chemical is the result of broken down red blood cells. These blood cells have an effective life of about 180 days and when they are used up (known as free radicals), they must be expelled from the body. The body has to get rid of a lot of these and we poo them away. When this chemical is exposed to light, it breaks down and loses its colour (and turns white). The amount of bones eaten by your dog will not change the nature of this chemical, but it could result in the excess calcium changing the colour of the poo when it is passed. The chemical will still break down and turn the rest of the poo white.

which suggests option 2 is the one]

Emps

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

The law?

Emperor Zombie: See my editted updates

Does anyone know which UK law(s) it was and when it came in?

I found the Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996:

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1996/1996020.htm

but this seems a bit late.

Ahhhhhhhh (I do love answering my own questions) this explains things further:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/localenv/dogs/foul.htm

This seems about the right timing:

The Litter (Animal Droppings) Order 1991
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si1991/Uksi_19910961_en_1.htm

and confirms Section 86 (14) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990:
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/Ukpga_19900043_en_5.htm#mdiv86

(14) The Secretary of State may, by order, apply the provisions of this Part which apply to refuse to any description of animal droppings in all or any prescribed circumstances subject to such modifications as appear to him to be necessary.

Emps

 

[Anonymous]

Wasn't this about the time that dried foods were introduced for dogs? You could buy huge bags of the stuff cheaply which made it very popular.

Wouldn't consider it for my old pal but a friend of mine fed his on it and that dog sure had white poo syndrome.

 

[Timble2]

White dog muck predated the big bags of dried dog-food, they were round in 1963 as me and my horrible little friends used to count them on the way to primary school.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

EZ: I consider it unlikely because my dogs are eating ordinary dog food but when I miss the odd jobbie and it happens to fall on a hard dry surface it will usually turn white which suggests to me that it isn't the food that is responsible but that the whitening of dog poo is a natural process and it was the intoduction of dog fouling laws at the start of the nineties which means means that dog mess is no longer being left around long enough (as there are less of them those dog eggs which 'fall through' the net, as it were, are more easily cleaned up) for the change to take place.

I'm not sure of your evidence in favour of the Dietary Change Theory - you say:

since blood cells can react to our diet its a simple equation of chicken and the egg

I don't know what that means.

Poo is brown because of the dead blood cells that are expelled in excrement and it appears that given a hard, dry surface (which limits natural decomposition) the dead blood cells decompose and the turd reverts to the white state.

That said I have yet to track down a definitive source for this chemical change but the expalantion does make sense when viewed in the light of:

1. The colouration of poo.

2. The legal changes that took place at the same time white dog shit disappeared.

On the colour of jobbies:

http://www.smellypoop.com/poop.html

Why is poop brown?
The color comes mainly from bilirubin, a pigment that arises from the breakdown of red blood cells in the liver and bone marrow. The actual metabolic pathway of bilirubin and its byproducts in the body is very complicated, so we will simply say that a lot of it ends up in the intestine, where it is further modified by bacterial action. But the color itself comes from iron. Iron in hemoglobin in red blood cells gives blood its red color, and iron in the waste product bilirubin gives rise to its brown color.

To SmellyPoop.com
Hi,
A friend of mine just sent me the link to your website for fun. I really enjoyed the 'Survival Guide for Taking a Dump at Work'. However, I believe that there is an error among your explanation for the color of feces. The brown color is a result of broken down red blood cells, but I don't think that it's a result of iron. Most of the iron that is released from the breakdown of heme is reabsorbed by cells in the bone marrow for incorporation into new red blood cells. That's why we don't have a large daily requirement for iron in our diets. Anyhow, what remains of the hemoglobin is then called biliverdin, which is converted into bilirubin and is excreted. This compound can build up in some people and cause jaundice. The colors of these molecules are due to their complex structures, which contain rings of carbon and nitrogen atoms. Intestinal bacteria further modify bilirubin to produce urobilinogen and stercobilinogen. If I remember correctly, the red color of blood is also due to the porphyrin ring of heme and not iron.

So, you're absolutely correct to say that it's a complicated explanation and it has to do with the breakdown of red blood cells, but I don't think that iron has anything to do with the brown color of poop or the red color of blood.

-Dustin

Still looking for the definitive answer...........

[edit: And in relation to what Timble say: Some of those links have rports from people who saw white dog turds in the 50s]

Emps

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Some more digging (I have to stop this). Led to:

you could also get white poo if you got sick with hepatitis. It disrupts bilirubin (discarded blood pigment from old red blood cells. Under normal circumstances, the liver metabolizes bilirubin (which is yellow) to other chemicals which turn our poo brown. When your liver is ill, it cant do its work, so the umetabolized yellow bilirubin turns your skin yellow and your piss dark brown, and your turds are pale.

http://www.poopreport.com/Stories/Content/imbalanced.html

Not exactly scientific fact but it might help narrow things down on the cause

More:

Some people with liver damage have physicalsymptoms, but often not until the damage is quitesevere. You may feel tired and weak or generallyunwell. You may also lose weight. One of the wasteproducts that a damaged liver cannot process is achemical called bilirubin. If bilirubin builds up in yourbody, it can make your skin and the white of your eyesturn yellow. This is called jaundice. Your urine canbecome dark in colour because it has more bilirubin than usual, and your feces (excrement) may be light in colour because it contains less bilirubin than usual

http://www.agouron.com/Pages/agCanadaEnglish/Media/HIV HCV11565_Eng.pdf

The reddish-brown color of human feces is derived from stercobilin, created by bacterial action on bilirubin and subsequent oxidation.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feces

Emps

 

[Anonymous]

Never mind the white ones: bo-o-ring! I wanna know about the bright yellow-ish burnt-umber-ish ones an old mate of mine's wee girl found when the three of us went for a walk in her home village one time, and skirted the edge of the local golf-course. Be about '94-'95. They were HUGE (newborn baby's head-sized on average) and they were all the identical yellowy-orangey-mustard colour. And there were dozens of 'em!! All seemingly quite fresh!!

Our minds were boggled and our stomach's were turned. Well except for the kid: she was still at that age where giant yellow dog-poo was hilarious. :nonplus:

 

[oll_lewis]

Speaking as a qualifyed biologist (althogh admitidly I did not undertake 'shite studies' which was availible to us as an elective from the media studies department) I would say that it is most likly to be a combination of both the food and drying out.

White dog mess was comonly associated with Chappie dog food which changed its recipie in the early 90's or late 80's. Chappie was and still is widly considered to be the best dog food you can give a mongrol, because they often get the squirts if they are put on Pedagree Chum as it is too rich for them quite often. It was something in the chappe that reacted with the coloring of the poo in warm conditions to whiten the poo which is why you never saw a dog actully laying down white cables, but you may have seen pale brown ones.
This also conveniently explanes why posh pedagree dogs are more comonly accociated with the noble dark brown dog's egg.

another theory that was bandied about that might be true but has not as far as I'm aware yet been mentioned is that dogs of the order of the white lance might have had something odd going on with bacteria in their guts as it is dead bacteria that gives turds their distinctive brown colouring. Although I know absolutly nothing about micro-biology so i wouldn't know how valid that theory is...

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Lord_Flashheart: Just a couple of counters to your points:

1. The Hybrid Theory - I've never fed my dog's Chappie and the eggs they still lay often turn white.

2. Bacteria making poo brown:

might have had something odd going on with bacteria in their guts as it is dead bacteria that gives turds their distinctive brown colouring

As mentioned above it is bilirubin (or more specifically stercobilin) that darkens the dung. Bacteria makes up a lot of the bulk of bum cigars:

What is poop made of?
About 3/4 of your average turd is made of water. Of course, this value is highly variable - the water content of diarrhea is much higher, and the amount of water in poop that has been retained (voluntarily or otherwise) is lower. Water is absorbed out of fecal material as it passes through the intestine, so the longer a turd resides inside before emerging, the drier it will be.
Of the remaining portion of the turd, about 1/3 is composed of dead bacteria. These microcorpses come from the intestinal garden of microorganisms that assist us in the digestion of our food. Another 1/3 of the turd mass is made of stuff that we find indigestible, like cellulose, for instance. This indigestible material is called "fiber," and is useful in getting the turd to move along through the intestine, perhaps because it provides traction. The remaining portion of the turd is a mixture of fats such as cholesterol, inorganic salts like phosphates, live bacteria, dead cells and mucus from the lining of the intestine, and protein.

Again from:
http://www.smellypoop.com/poop.html

but not the colour (as far as I can tell).

It may be that intestinal flora or fauna may contribute to the tendency of the bilirubin to decompose and the jobbie to loose its colouring but it does largely to be a combination of:

1. Retardation of decomposition (being deposited on a non-organic surface).

2. Drying.

Or at least as far as I can tell.

Emps

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

And an aside - from an article on what to do over the summer holidays:

Worms, leeches and white dog mess in Leeds

Medicine being one of the more yucky professions, this child-oriented specialist collection next to the famous St James hospital offers splendid opportunities for revulsion: jars for essence of earthworm - worms boiled down in olive oil; tubes for fixing leeches to the eyes; a selection of seventeenth-century medical textbooks which include remedies made from dog mess - the white kind only, said to cure sore throats when mixed with honey and spread on your neck. Case of epilepsy? Get some male brains down you, boy. Touch of TB? Try swallowing live snails, girl.

· Thackray Museum, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7LN, 0113 244 4343. Tue-Sun, plus bank holiday Mon 10am-5pm. Adults £4.40, children £3.30, under 5s free, family ticket £14.

from:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/travel/story/0,6903,577694,00.html

Anyone else know of other uses for white dog poo?

[edit: In fact someone visiting or living in Leeds could pop in and ask - they seem to have lots of interesting stuff to make a visit worthwhile:

http://www.thackraymuseum.org

clearly the presence of white dog poo in the 17th Century would poo-poo the theory that it was something to do with diet (possibly) - perhaps the only reason it seemed such a big feature of the eighties is that the dramatic reduction of them in the early nineties made us more nostaligic about it - we don't know what we've got until its gone]

Emps

 

[Anonymous]

I Think I put my finger on something here

This site says that white poos are more like the kind that wild dogs have.

http://www.goldentails.com/amore_dog.htm
__________________________________________________

Most dogs adapt to a raw diet with no difficulty, but it is a good idea to go slowly, especially if your dog has a history of past digestive problems.

It shouldn't take more than a week to switch your dog over to a raw diet, but don't be shocked if his feces turns white when you start giving him the raw bones.

This is a natural and more closely resembles the feces of wild dogs and wolves. If you examine these stools closely ( and what conscientious dog parent doesn't!) you will notice that they have little bumps on them. These little bumps empty the anal sacs every time the dog defecates, thereby eliminating the stench, discomfort and cost associated with clogged anal sacs.

Don't think because you have a little dog that you have to buy little bones. Miniature Pinchers chew on the same size bones as St. Bernard's and get a wonderful workout while they're doing it.
____________________________________________________

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

An experiment?

Matthew: Thanks for that. The 'fact' that eating bone turns some dog poo white (I've never seen my dog's poo go white after eating a lot of bone) pos. has no more bearing on things than a Barium meal turning your poo white has.

People rarely report a dog laying a white cable but they do clearly appear to change colour sometime after the event (it appears to be a different process to the occasional ivory log)

I think what we need is some kind of experiment.

The Dietary Shift Theory for the extinction of white dog eggs would tend to predict that dog eggs disappeared at the end of the eighties due to some change in diet.

The Legal Theory would predict that the appearance of white dog eggs is due to a change in the law removing the dog logs from the ideal location for their preservation. The preservation meant that they would survive long enough for the chemical changes to take place that would lead to the breakdown of the brown colouration.

Sooooooooo it should be easy enough to monitor a selection of dog turds and see what happens. I suspect the weather is still warm enough for the changes to take place.

Well if the neighbours didn't think I was strange enough already.........

Emps

 

[Anonymous]

you want me to do what?

It seems that if whitening was an "after effect" due to exposure the inside or 'the core' would still be a darker colour.

If it were a "dietary effect" the colour would be fairly consistent all the way through.

I guess a cross section of the material would be needed for a complete analysis. Let me know what you find out

What struck a chord with me about that bone thing was when we were raising our family dog, back in the 80's, there was a warning about feeding your dog bones. Supposedly the bones could splinter and perforate the dog. Especially if you have more than one dog and they wolf down the bones jealously instead of having a leisurely knaw. Whether this is true or not it could have had an effect on peoples feeding habits such as not feeding their dogs as many table scraps and keeping them on a dog food only diet.

 

[Anonymous]

Diet changes in the 80's?

So the dogs that did it outside my house in the 60's had time machines did they?

We should be told

BTW our kid used to reckon that the white crusty ones were from "poncey dogs, like poodles"

Anyone noticed if they are breed-specific?

Our Jack Russell, fed mostly on liver bits and biscuits, used to do them like Walnut Whips (sans walnut)

 

[gyrtrash]

Yeah! I remember the white turds from the late seventies/early eighties!

Me and my mates thought they were normal turds that had been dried and 'bleached' by the sun!
They were great for kicking, didn't make a sloppy mess on your shoe, just crumbled into a white shower!

 

[oll_lewis]

Lord_Flashheart: Just a couple of counters to your points:

1. The Hybrid Theory - I've never fed my dog's Chappie and the eggs they still lay often turn white.

I never said it was exclusive to Chappie though, Butchers trpe mix is another dog food that is recomended for mongrols in paticular by vets... pehaps there is some conection in the ingredients. IIRC Butchers was not around in the 80's but if it was who knows butchers could be associated with white dog eggs too.

maybe they simply put too much salt in the food for the dog mess so it became natrally mumifyed and bleached in the sun.

 

[Anonymous]

White dog poo was caused by excess amounts of calcium in the dog food of the time, as the industry progressed minerals and nutrients that were found to still be in large %'s after digestion were removed to make the food 'more effecient'.

Thats according to a friend on another Forum who got the grand tour of the Mars factory where they also make some popular brands of dog foods.

 

[oll_lewis]

Mars masterfoods who make chappie

 

[Beakmoo]

Ooh the first female on this thread.
While cleaning my cat's outdoor litter-tray (actually a large flowerpot of sandy soil), I recently discovered a cat poo which had earlier escaped my attention, fallen to the patio and been baked by the sun (it's south facing, and very hot indeed), and yes, it was white. How does this affect the debate?

 

[escargot]

I have read that white dog-doos arise from the inclusion of bones in the diet.

This theory has been extensively tested in the escargot household as all dogs residing therein are fed on butcher scraps which consist mainly of pigs' tails and rib ends. Lots of bone is consumed by the house mutts and many white turds deposited afterwards.

When the dogs are fed on more meat-rich meals their excrement immediately reverts to shoe-polish brown nuggets.

Incidentally the larger dog's droppings are always whiter and crumblier than the smaller dog's, which I attribute to his greater jaw-strength and consequent ability to consume bone. The smaller doggy leaves a few bones whereas the larger one eats the lot.

:cross eye

 

[SmirnoffMule]

Flash, does it really make a difference whether your dog is purebred or mongrel in terms of what you feed it? Admittedly, a dog's digestive capabilities may vary from breed to breed (my staffie ate my toothbrush the other day with no ill effects) but surely there's no significant difference in the internal make-up of a purebred and a mix? I always assumed the "delicate stomachs" some owners claim for their pedigree pooches were more to do with the owners than the dog itself. I've always fed my dogs on chappie, whatever their ethnic origin, and they all seem to do equally well on it. Haven't been taking particular note of the poo, though, I'm afraid, so can't comment on that. ^_^

 

[escargot]

my staffie ate my toothbrush

Was that the week after the hamster incident?

 

[chris_in_LA]

I thought I read somewhere that they used to use ash as filler for dog food, but now they don't anymore. I'll be darned if I can remember where I read that now, so maybe it's a False Memory.

 

[Anonymous]

I have read that white dog-doos arise from the inclusion of bones in the diet.

Bones, Calcium same thing

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I thought I read somewhere that they used to use ash as filler for dog food, but now they don't anymore. I'll be darned if I can remember where I read that now, so maybe it's a False Memory.

Not a false memory at all: it used to be listed on the ingredients of some
of the cheaper brands back in the eighties, when I had a little doggie.

She disdained all the posh dog-foods which were designed to resemble
tinned steak chunks. Instead she preferred this cheapo brand, the name
of which I forget. It smelled fishy and was a dense paste but she wolfed
it down.

She lived to see nineteen, so it can't have done her much harm. Her droppings
were never white, though, so ash can't be responsible for les merdes blancs
(blanches?).

The one thing I know is guaranteed to produce these pale sausages is a
Barium meal. Maybe they have changed the formula and patients are no longer
driven to drop their pants in the street.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I thought I read somewhere that they used to use ash as filler for dog food, but now they don't anymore.

Butcher's tripe lists a typical analysis as containing 4% ash.

I think in the interests of furthering this one I might try contacting the Chappie manufacturers to see if they changed their recipe

[edit: OK I have contacted their vets - it says there will be a response within 48 hours. I'll pass on any relevant information other than 'get lost you weirdo']

Emps

 

[Anonymous]

Well. My knowledge of the Victorian labouring and underclasses actually comes in handy for once.

Dog poop turns white because of the calcium phosphate in it. This is generally derived from bone meal in prepared dog food, or from dogs gnawing on bones otherwise. After all the organic matter dries out and washes away, one is left with that block of calcium phosphate.

The bleached-out poop is known as a 'dog pure'. There used to be a class of casual labourer known as a 'pures collector'. They wandered about cities collecting white dog poop to sell to leather tanneries for the calcium phosphate. What the tanneries did with it, I've not a clue.

I can find exactly one (sort of) cite for this on Google, which apparently refers to collected pures being sold in bulk to a tannery.

http://www.geocities.com/forgevalleyrailway/snainton.html

 

[escargot]

The 'dog pure' was used to prepare extra-soft, more expensive leather for making ladies' gloves.

Collecting it must have been a really lovely job.

 

[marion]

Ooh the first female on this thread.
While cleaning my cat's outdoor litter-tray (actually a large flowerpot of sandy soil), I recently discovered a cat poo which had earlier escaped my attention, fallen to the patio and been baked by the sun (it's south facing, and very hot indeed), and yes, it was white. How does this affect the debate?

Hmmmmm...I use silica gel cat litter as my cat lives in my bedroom/bathroom and it is the least smelly type-it completely dries out her turds but they don't get noticably paler-I wonder if sunlight/daylight is a factor in the whitening process? She eats top of the range dried cat food.

 

[Anonymous]

If anyone remebers the 'Young Ones' (a British alternative comedy series about a group of students in a run down house, errr basically), Neil the Hippie had a book published called 'Neils Book of the Dead'.

I cant find my copy anywhere now, but i do remember it had a section in it about the White Dog Crap and its mystical, nay transcendental qualities. Heavy Man.