watery poo

callmekenneth

my american bulldog's poos are quite watery, makes it a nightmare to clean up when we're out walking, they look ok but when you pick them up they're not solid at all. he is on dry meal twice a day with a tin of sardines and oil in his evening meal. i've had him on different dry meal from Aldi complete to life stage to (cant remember the current one), any advice on soliding it up? i thought if i just tried different types i'd happen on one that worked but none have so far

andreac

Id imagine its the food to be honest. Aldi stuff is awful so no wonder the poos were bad.

You really need to get your dog on a good quality food. Theres a reason food is cheap. What other ones have you tried?

Dunny

That food is to be avoided. God knows what is in it!

You have a quality breed of dog get him a quality food.

Irish Stones

I don't think that trying several kinds of food is a good idea. And you have to choose a high quality or premium brand to ensure that the food is well balanced and with good ingredients.
Another thing I'm thinking about is that your dog could have intestinal parasites. Talk to your vet and see how you can have a test on your dog's poo.

Ms Tootsie

First off foods from supermarket chains should be avoided at all costs and are more than likely what is making your guys poos watery. Get a good pet food that has the first ingrediant reading something like 'human grade chicken' or 'human grade lamb' - anything that starts with cereals is a bad idea.

Secondly the switching around of his food so frequently will also be adding to the problem, settle on a brand and slowly switch him over. I would suggest getting the tinned food from the vet (precriptive food) to firm up his poos as he may be dehydrated if they are particularly bad. Have him on this for 2 -3 days and when his poos firm up start to introduce your new brand, just a few bits of kibble at first. The switch over should take one week if you do it this way. Alternatively if you want to avoid going down the precriptive food path continue feeding him what you have been and introduce the new better brand slowly over 2 weeks until the cheaper brand has been phased out. Switching too quickly doesnt allow his digestive system time to adjust and so causes and upset tummy which leads to runny poo.

Also make sure he has plenty of water until the problem is resolved as runny poo can lead to dehydration in a dog.

If you are unsure about what brands are good there are lots of threads on here which offer great advice. Alternatively you could feed him a fresh or raw diet.

callmekenneth

cheers! i ad him on life stage which is quite an expensive brand and it wasnt making any difference. any particular brands anyone would recommend?

andreac

callmekenneth wrote: »

cheers! i ad him on life stage which is quite an expensive brand and it wasnt making any difference. any particular brands anyone would recommend?

Life stage, ive never heard of it. Who makes it and how much is it a bag?

callmekenneth

andreac wrote: »

Life stage, ive never heard of it. Who makes it and how much is it a bag?

not sure who makes it, bought it in jollyes in newry, one of the guys there recommended it, cost about £30stg per 15kilo bag (i think)

http://www.jollyes.co.uk/lifestage/dogs

callmekenneth

it might be worth noting i previously had a larger boxer cross male who i fed the Aldi or Lidl complete stuff and he thrived on it, solid poos and all. since i got this bulldog his poos have been suspect, he's been treated for worms etc

andreac

I had a look there and cant see the ingredients. Is the first ingredient meat, it should say it on the bag.

It could be that your dog has a sensitive tummy so might be hard finding something to suit him. Arden Grange is a good one and think they have a sensitive one. Burns is good too for sensitive ones.

To be honest, Aldi and Lidl dog food are pure muck when it comes to quality. Their ingredients are awful. Sure you only have to look at the colour of the kibble to realise that is all full of artificial colours and preservatives.

Would you conside the Raw/Barf diet for your dog?

Ms Tootsie

As Andrec mentioned if he has a sensitive stomach then raw / barf might be the way for you to go. This is a problem we had with our guy and thankfully since switching to this type of diet we havent looked back and the problem hasnt returned.

callmekenneth

raw/barf? what is this?

Cheshire Cat

Might be the sardines. My two get sardines in oil once a week and their poo is definitely a lot softer the day after :eek:

callmekenneth

Cheshire Cat wrote: »

Might be the sardines. My two get sardines in oil once a week and their poo is definitely a lot softer the day after :eek:

thanks! i assumed daily fish in oil would be good for him, i might try him on the tinned stuff for a while, along with a better quality meal

carleigh

If it continues, I would have a chat to the vet. My late dog suffered with the same ailment, and it turned out he had collitis. I found that feeding him tins of I/D from the vet helped solidify everything!

Irish Stones

callmekenneth wrote: »

not sure who makes it, bought it in jollyes in newry, one of the guys there recommended it, cost about £30stg per 15kilo bag (i think)

http://www.jollyes.co.uk/lifestage/dogs

It says it's a premium food.
Not quite sure, but 2 pounds per kg seems a little cheap to me.
I am a cat owner, I pay 28 euro per 3 kg of cat food, that is GBP 24.50, and it's 4 times more expensive.
I think this might mean something.
Listen to my bit of advice, make a call to your vet and ask them what is their opinion and if they think that a test on those poos can be a good idea.

DogsFirst

Runny poo / IBS / colitis like symptoms, all caused by gluten / cooked chicken /beef consumption. The film on the outside of the poo is the mucous lining of the gut, soon that'll turn to blood. You have to remove gluten (wheat / barley / rye), cooked chicken and cooked beef from the diet. Move to a fresh diet for a month to convince yourself of the move. This should be a diet of 30% sweet potatoes and 70% turkey or oily fish. Include some fish oil caps to calm the immune system, some low fat probiotic to help the digestive system, some slippery elm to repair the mucous lining. Finally pick up some natural antioxidants in the health food shop, human version fine. One third of a table each day. 4 weeks. Then challenge with cooked chicken in second month and cooked beef the third to see which one is causing the problem. It's likely gluten.

barbiegirl

Our eldest dog was the same til we switched her to Robbie's. It costs under €60 for a big bag that lasts 6 weeks between a medium and a small dog. So premium food that is really quite cheap. The oil every day is a bit much maybe once a week rather than everyday.

boomerang

Cut down on the sardines first of all, to just once a week or so, and drain off most of the oil. You mightn't need to change his brand of dog food, necessarily. You can top the food with fresh foods like a dollop of natural yoghurt, occasional sardines, a fistful of chopped up roast chicken, non-starchy green veg and any healthy table scraps you have left over from the dinner. (Nothing with a lot of tomato or onion in it, though.) Just remember in that case to reduce how much of the dry food you give him that day, so he's not getting too many calories and turning into a porker.


I give my dogs tinned sardines if they're constipated, so sardines every day would definitely make for runny poos!

DogsFirst

THe only thing in a tin of sardines making your dogs poo runny is the veg oil. Lots of reasons for this, including veg oil (high in omega 6) making your dogs gut inflammation worse. But sardines, next to eggs, are one of the most digestible foods on the planet, leading to smaller, drier poos..... / its why veg oil sucks for dogs, certainly allergy dogs!

callmekenneth

great stuff thanks all! i will make improvements and report back!

callmekenneth

looks like it was the fish, have him on tinned food and brandy meal and his poos are much improved, tin of fish once a week now instead

falabo

ok, talking to your vet is one thing as the dog cvould have underelyign prolems which need to be dealt with (although I'm 90% it's the Aldi food)

HOWEVER do take the vet's advice with a pinch of salt. I have found that most vets know nothing or very little about canine nutrition. My own vet told me "Pedigree is fine, perfect food, my dog lived for 17 years"

Then I joined the boards here and took advice from andreac, cocker5, adrenalinejunkie etc

I switched my dogs to good quality food (Lukullus), NEVER had a runny poo again, never had an upset stomach again

All supermarket food are awful. Do speak to the vet but you will see that will either tell you that supermarket foof or sell you whatever they have at the surgery and make a massive margin on.

You can do very well for €35-50 per bag from www.zooplus.ie or the UK site

It is more expensive than cheap foods from the supermarket but you will feed less of it, your dog will be sick less often so less vet fees and most importantly your dog will be happier.

I won't even get started of how if feels to be able to pick up the poos nicely on the walks , I'd almost dream of doing it

oh, I also forgot to mention, most dogs are allergic to cereals, so best to go for a grain free type of food. I have ran out of food end of last week, there is an order on the way, should get it today or tomorrow so in the meantime I had no choice but to feed them supermrket food (I wont do the raw diet thing) and no exageration, my dogs started to scratch themselves on saturday and tjeir poos were runny all weekend

Now, hope thats enough to convice you !

DogsFirst

callmekenneth wrote: »

looks like it was the fish, have him on tinned food and brandy meal and his poos are much improved, tin of fish once a week now instead

Interesting re fish, very rare for an animal to be allergic to raw fish as it's so digestible (~90%). Possible though. Maybe the supermarket brand you were feeding was fish based? If so dogs are proven to sensitise to the animal protein there in within 12months on the same food, possible he could be sensitised to the fish.

Would try him on raw mackerel / salmon after three weeks to test this so as it's such a great inclusion, it's be a pity to cut it out. Least you have chicken?!

There's definitely some dry foods that have perfected decent stools in the dog, Eukanuba for example. Must be remembered though that while poos are the gateway to digestion, a decent stool in this case of any dry food says absolutely nothing for the nutrient quality of the meal, just that it was digested. You could feed them potatoes with no skin all night (very digestible) and have hardly any poo out the other end, doesn't make them a great meal.

Often too if the dogs poo was runny on one food, a change to another brand helps for a period but very often the symptoms return months to years later. The runny poo is gastro-intolerance of something therein (gluten or cooked meat), its the immune system saying I don't like this. Dogs prone to it will often display symptoms again down the line if you feed the same dry meal day in day out.