Loose poop

[LiquidBlue]

Kuai Le has never had solid poop since I've had her (September). When we purchased her she was on Science Diet with soft, cow patty like poops. After talking with the vet, we switched her to IAMS Large puppy with little to no improvement, she was on IAMs for a little over a month with the most horrible smelling poop ever. Then I found this forum. I'm now switching her to this: http://www.bluebuff.com/products/dogs/lp-large-puppy-chick.shtml and bought here these treats: http://www.nutroproducts.com/ncbis-crb.shtml . She also gets carrots and an occasional apple slice. She is on 1/2 IAMS 1/2 Blue Buffalo now. Her poops were still soft, but looked formed. We took her to the vet to test for parasites. Nothing. The vet prescribed Kanamycin, this was on the 23rd. (The vet also said that she had brittle hair, which I thought would be related to the food, but he just said to give her weekly baths.) Today she just made a poop puddle in the living room . I am guessing that yesterday she had a milk bone or two from her doggy cousins. But I have no idea what to do Any suggestions would be most appriciated. :banghead:

 

[AsOctoberFalls]

It could be any number of things causing the loose poop! We went through this with my dog Burgess a while back, and it was VERY frustrating. For our pup, it ended up being the carbohydrates in his food (in our case, Canidae ALS, and then Merrick Cowboy cookout, and then California Natural herring & sweet potato - we tried different foods thinking he had a sensitivity to some of the ingredients). We ended up switching him to a grain-free food (Orijen 6 Fresh Fish) and his poops were *instantly* perfect. They've been nice and (mostly) solid ever since.

I'm not saying this is the case for your dog, obviously, but I thought I'd share my experience.

Good luck; I know how frustrating it can be!

 

[Ursa]

We're having a similar problem. We tried Blue Buffalo which worked for the girls but not for Fargo. We tried Merrick which didn't work for either Newf but did great for the Pyr. I'd like to try grain free but are my dogs too young for that?

 

[Erika]

Tis the yr of the loose and lovely Hershey squirts.......had blood work done today for our 8 month old Gandolph,he is parasite free and all else free.ordered enzymes and got the name of a special food.. hope it works.Heres to all you loose poop peoples....i feel your pain.....atleast gandy makes it out side now.Wheeeeewww, his arent very frequent anymore.

 

[Charlie'sMom]

I would consider trying to change over to a grain free food. I know a lot of people who have used it and gotten good results with respect to the solidity and size of the poo. Charlie had soft poo, lots of gas, and bacterial skin infexctions, which all stopped when I switched him to Orijen. Keep in mind, however, that you will need to cut the quantity when you change, as it is really high calorie, and very richm, which can cause problems if you give too much.

 

[R Taft]

We had the poop problems too when we got Annabelle at the age of thirteen months. We now feed her mainly raw and no canned or dried food. All food is raw or home cooked. She gets some fruit and veg added and she does get canned sardines. She now has beautiful skin and good manures, easy to pick up like cigars :lol:. The other thing we noticed since going raw is we have no yellow patches in the lawn anymore. And we have three dogs. So something is definitely different

 

[ladybugnessa]

we are still struggling with loose poops. some days are formed but soft
some days are liquid.

food currently is Californial Natual Chicken and rice.

we note he is worse when he is stressed. and when he gets too many yummies (even approved ones)

he had a rawhide yesterday and that had serious negative impact on him. I TOLD MY husband NO rawhides)

we did test positive for hookworms and cryptosporidium (a fairly rare and awful intestinal parasite) but we've been treated for those and giardia.

we are just about ready to think about allergies for him....

 

[newfam]

We're having a similar problem. We tried Blue Buffalo which worked for the girls but not for Fargo. We tried Merrick which didn't work for either Newf but did great for the Pyr. I'd like to try grain free but are my dogs too young for that?

Tsunami is almost 8 months and he has never been on food that has grains in it. We started off with Wolf Cub I believe and he didn't like that and so we then switched to Orijen Large Puppy. He loved it but we never got the stools right :banghead:. We are thinking he has a sensitivity to chicken, so we have done another switch to Orijen 6 Fish and things are starting to look solid ... fingers crossed.

I know some of you feed raw as did Tsunami's breeder, my question is can puppies be put on a raw diet to young and then develop a sensitivity to some foods? Kinda like babies? Just wondering.

 

[ozzysma]

my stevie has been on orijen since a pup! no problems!

 

[JLStorm]

we are still struggling with loose poops. some days are formed but soft
some days are liquid.

food currently is Californial Natual Chicken and rice.

we note he is worse when he is stressed. and when he gets too many yummies (even approved ones)

he had a rawhide yesterday and that had serious negative impact on him. I TOLD MY husband NO rawhides)

we did test positive for hookworms and cryptosporidium (a fairly rare and awful intestinal parasite) but we've been treated for those and giardia.

we are just about ready to think about allergies for him....

If its worse when he is nervous I would strongly recommend that you talk to your vet about IBS, this sounds like it might be whats going on. There are quite a few human drugs that work well in dogs for IBS management which can be prescribed by your vet.

 

[victoria1140]

hi if your vet decides it's ibs then some of the things you can try are obviously probiotics , white poplar bark and willow bark, slippery elm tablets and bosweilia serrata(indian frankincense). We use the first three as Merlin has terrible ibs and on these homeopathic's he is off steroids now and vets treatments.We had the hershey squits with Beau and despite every test under the sun no luck. My vet consulted a specialist in dietary problems and we put him on hills z/d for three months. Two weeks on formed poo and during the 3rd month we started reintroducing normal kibble and foods again. We have the odd bad day when he gets overexcited or stressed but fingers crossed more better days than bad now but we still watch daily poops just in case.

 

[Abbey]

Zeke is VERY sensitive to just about everything. Chicken is one of the worst. We tryed all different kinds of foods. Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Fish or Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Venison, (both are their Allergy formulas) are the only ones that keep him solid. We ever so often will try something new but will have to go back to Natural Balance because he will get bad (painful) gas and the runs. I will not torture him any more trying different foods. We know what works and we will stick to it.

 

[Leonard and his bud Snuffles]

Snuffles gets loose with chicken based foods. Not sure if it is the by products that most have or chicken in general. Snuffles has been on Nutro Choice Lamb and Rice for about 2.5 years and generally doesn't get runny.

Now not to sound gross, but I do pick up 99.9% of Snuffles poop right after it happens, since Snuffles does it during our 4 walks a day. So I am very well aware of what comes out at the moment. It does seem like when Snuffles has 3 poops in a day's time, they tend to be smaller, softer and not as well formed. But if he does like 2 a day with more time between them, they seem a lot better formed. I gather your dog is quite young. I gather if she doesn't have to hold it, and gets out a lot, it could be she is squeezing it out as someone once said, so it doesn't have time to firm up. Just my opinion.

 

[LiquidBlue]

Thank you all for the great info. Its nice to know I'm not the only one. The IBS is really something to think about, we had quite the incident at Petsmart the last time we took her there. She will be finished with her meds tomorrow with absolutly no improvement.

How long should I wait inbetween foods that don't help before I try something else? I finally found a place where I can get Orijen. I can't believe in this huge city there is only ONE place that carries Orijen. A few of the other foods you mentioned are avail. here too.

 

[Bär]

I switched to Orijen cold turkey, no transition at all. Bär's poop went normal right away too. The only problem I had was with the Orijen 6 fish, he has a shell allergie which we did not know about. If you can, buy the small bag & try it out. Bär does well on the Orjien puppy, large puppy & adult. Because he is a picky eater I have him on the puppy right now, but the kibble is really small, so I might switch him back to the large breed.

 

[LiquidBlue]

I just found a store that carries almost every dog food you guy have suggested (yay!!). I am going to switch Kuai Le to Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream because its protein content is closer to what the dogs are getting now and both have skin issues...its actually a few bucks cheaper than what we were feeding her which made my hubby happy and me a little incredulous. I'm thinking of just switching cold turkey, it really can't get much worse than it already is...the new food is 360 kcal per cup and the old food is 505 kcal/per, should I be concerned?

Thanks again!

 

[estacey]

The TOTW salmon is what mine are on and poop is well formed and not runny. Before it was blowout city from behind with a very popular ordinary dog food. I also add salmon oil daily which makes for an awsome coat.

 

[ozzysma]

I just found a store that carries almost every dog food you guy have suggested (yay!!). I am going to switch Kuai Le to Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream because its protein content is closer to what the dogs are getting now and both have skin issues...its actually a few bucks cheaper than what we were feeding her which made my hubby happy and me a little incredulous. I'm thinking of just switching cold turkey, it really can't get much worse than it already is...the new food is 360 kcal per cup and the old food is 505 kcal/per, should I be concerned?

Thanks again!

if a food is not agreeing with a dog i would switch cold turkey. like you said it cannot get worse, especially if something in the food is the culprit!! as for the calorie count they may need a bit more food, or maybe they were eating too much which can also cause loose stools!

 

[ladybugnessa]

if a food is not agreeing with a dog i would switch cold turkey. like you said it cannot get worse, especially if something in the food is the culprit!! as for the calorie count they may need a bit more food, or maybe they were eating too much which can also cause loose stools!

oh I don't know. we were semi-loose and went to liquid.

personally I would (on the advice of my vet) add some pumpkin and rice to tighten them up then make a gradual switch.

I am not happy with their poop, it's still semi loose for Harley and more than twice a day, if i switch him to something with no transition, I'm pretty sure I'll have liquid poop....

 

[LiquidBlue]

I switched cold turkey...no change in poo after last night's dinner or this morning's breakfast one way or the other...what do you think is a good time frame to see improvement?

If there is no improvement from this food, I want to take her back to the vet, but I feel like I need to be armed with things to discuss or I will just leave with more drugs to treat the symptoms, not the problem.