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Notes -
I think the fact that you would consider P(other humans are p-zombies) even on the same order of magnitude as P(dogs are essentially p-zombies) is essentially the point I'm making.
I'm aware of animals that eat others' shit that has been through a different digestive tract and therefore has a different nutritional remnants, but please do enlighten me if the prevalence of eating one's own feces is more common than I thought.
Also, I see you left out the part about the vomit. Is there some nutritional value to that I'm also ignorant of?
Yes. First of all, a lot of what you call "vomit" isn't, it's regurgitation. That can happen when the dog expels food that hadn't reached the stomach yet. That can happen from time to time, though if it happens frequently there might be some problem with the plumbing somewhere on the way. But could be just biting more than they could chew, or stomach, quite literally. Obviously, there's no reason to waste good food just because it's slightly wet. Second, regurgitating is a frequent way for a parent to make food more easily palatable to children, and a dog may occasionally return to this childish behavior. Third, dogs have a chemical analyzer that most of us can't even dream of, and with that, if they see something that has viable nutrients mixed together with iffy substances, they could separate one from the other and eat the good parts without eating the bad ones. Just like eating carryon, for example. You probably would be revolted at the thought, but for many species - including dogs - it's a perfectly good meal, if you know what you're doing. There's also an instinctive behavior to clean up after themselves (to hide one's smell, for example, which both protects the dog and does not let the prey know the dog is near) and since the dog doesn't exactly have pockets... It could also be that a particular dog is unwell, of course, or is unable to realize eating something that smells good is not necessarily good for them - same as happens to many people too, just visit any local McDonalds store. Generally, if the dog vomits or regurgitates a lot, then that's the actual health problem. If it happens once in a while, usually not a big deal, and tells no more of their degeneracy than having an occasional quarter-pounder with cheese tells about human's.
Again, I must remind you that dogs are not humans, and what is disgusting and maybe harmful for you, is not necessarily so for a dog. If you started trying to lick your own butt as a means to maintain hygiene, your relatives probably would have you committed, but for a dog it is normal (and for many other animals too).
Coprophagia happens a lot in herbivores, because plants are tough to digest (I think you can continue this line of thought). Eating their own feces in dogs is actually not that common, but happens from time to time - though other species' feces are usually more appealing to them, for reasons you pointed out (though for a well-fed domestic dog there's no serious nutritional reason, but again the dog might not know that). One of the reasons puppies might do it is microbiome transfer (the gut has a lot of beneficial microbes, and guess what's the most efficient way for a mother to transfer some to the child). On the other hand, the pups may not have good hygiene habits yet, and in the absence of Pampers... But this is not that common in adult dogs actually. Of all dogs I knew well (about a dozen), none had any interest to their own poop. Research I saw shows only about 1/4 of dogs engage in this behavior, and it could be caused by various causes - from bad nutrition to bad training to psychological problems (anxiety->drive to hide->drive to remove one's smell->you can guess). But this specific thing is not universal for dogs at all.
Appreciate the deep-dive, though it certainly hasn't done anything for my utter disgust at being licked by them.
In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't trying to assign any sort of moral degeneracy to the dogs themselves. Rather, I believe we've warped their neural circuitry in ways that are cruel and maladaptive, much like we've done to the limbs and airways of certain breeds.
With the licking, you do need to be careful, it is understandable. Since dogs pretty much have the only way of cleaning themselves, their mouth may not be always as clean as one would prefer, and also a lot of owners neglect dental hygiene because it's impossible to teach the dog to brush their own teeth and floss, and they often dislike those procedures quite intensely, so it could be an expensive visit to a veterinarian to get their mouth in order. And dogs are as poorly evolutionary adapted to modern refined-sugar high-carbs diets as humans are. So being licked by a random strange dog is not always a good experience.
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