Food/toilet advice please!

[Vetty]

Stevie my collie pup is now 6 months old and we are still having poop issues. He has been 'loose' more than he hasn't since we got him but he is now going at night more than in the day...... I called in at the vet to ask advice and she recommended I get up early, take him out and then go back to bed to try and break the cycle of him going indoors. This is helping to a degree, but I am still cleaning up poo every morning. His poop is not diarreah (sp), just very soft like thick soup.

He is on Chudleys Junior dried food for breakfast, probiotic yoghurt and then chicken and boiled rice for his tea, but he is a bit of a scavenger (although I am trying very hard to stop him pinching stuff off the floor). He loves rawhide chews and I give him ad-hoc treats which include carrots, apples, gravy bones, raw eggs, sardines in tomato sauce etc (not all at once, just as and when!)

Should I change his food? Is there a supplement I can give him? He's booked in at the vets in friday for a general check up and I will talk to them about it, but just thought I'd see if there's anything I can do in the meantime....

Thanks for any suggestions guys.

 

[Henny]

You could get them to do a poo sample. My puppy also has very soft poos and got me up a couple of times in the night crying to go out. It turns out he had a giardia infection, whch I think he got from drinking out of ditches. He had panacur wormer for a fews days and is now as good as new! I thought he was altergic to all food, and was worried he was going to have to have chicken and rice forever. Might be something different but worth asking about.

 

[KarynK]

It might be the interaction between the proper food he is having as treats and the stuff from the sack.

You are half way there I would switch him onto raw meaty bones and he will go less and it will be firm, he'll be full and satisfied from his meals and he'll be getting everything he needs to grow.

 

[Vetty]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely ask for them to test a sample on friday.

Karyn, do you mean to feed meaty bones as meals or as treats? Would I get them from a butcher? Sorry for being a bit dim, first dog you see !!

 

[BigRed]

Personally I would stop feeding him such odd things as treats. Dogs don't need treats like sardines in tomato sauce. Try moving him to Eukanuba puppy food. It is very good for the poo department. You say he does not have diarrhea but dogs are not meant to have poo like thick soup, so he seems to have a problem with whatever you are feeding him.

 

[Vetty]

Personally I would stop feeding him such odd things as treats. Dogs don't need treats like sardines in tomato sauce. Try moving him to Eukanuba puppy food. It is very good for the poo department. You say he does not have diarrhea but dogs are not meant to have poo like thick soup, so he seems to have a problem with whatever you are feeding him.

I thought oily fish were good for dogs, but it's an easy one to stop although I would only give it once a week-ish! I know there's a problem somewhere and have done so much searching on here for potential ways to solve it......

I'll have a look at Eukanuba food as well, I didn't realise it was such a minefield feeding a dog.....

Thanks for your help

 

[KarynK]

Yes dog food is a minefield and you have to bear in mind several things principally:
Feed companies are out to make a profit
Protien and animal fat are a dogs natural source of energy but they are expensive and hard to preserve.
Carbohydrates like grains rice and potatoes are what people use for energy, they are cheap and plentiful and easy to preserve.
So most dry dog foods with a shelf life will be mainly grain with meat at best, meat flavouring at worst.
A preservative will be used to gain a shelf life of over 6 months.
Pet food is not regulated as human food, if a company does not add a chemical themselves then they do not have to declare it in the feed.
Unlike Human Food they do not have to be accurate in description so Lamb and rice may well be rice with lamb flavour.
Most commercial food is cooked at high temperatures destroying much of the nutrients which have to be added back in.

Here is a link to tell you what it means on the labels.
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=339836

There are a growing number of people dissatisfied with dog food, that feel that a lot of the problems with skin teeth and diseases such as diabetes and some cancers are linked to food and are either cooking heir own diet or going raw, which is what a dogs digestive system is designed for, it is short fast and highly acidic to deal with bones and any bugs like salmonella, this allows dogs to scavenge on rotten things that would make us very ill, it is probably why dogs did not suffer from CJD after BSE hit as they were fed infected cows!

I am very passionate about making people aware of the pitfalls in modern pet food I want to see an improvement in the diet of the average dog by forcing these companies to do much better and be much more open and honest about their food and it's exact contents.

The diet I use (Species appropriate raw food) consists of feeding a variety raw meaty bones from the butcher, which provide all of a dogs mineral requirements most vitamins and protein along with natural essential fatty acids that a dog needs, most of which plants are severely lacking in. Also fed are offal, eggs, fish* and muscle meat and a small amount of liquidised fresh raw veg or lightly steamed and mashed. *Oily fish are excellent for dogs as they provide the Omega 3 oils lacking in plant sources. Most dog food uses plant sources as it is cheaper, so by giving him this you are probably providing something lacking in the food.

Dogs lack the ability to break down plant cell walls as they are unable to chew food and do not secrete the enzyme amilase in their mouth like we do, which starts breaking down complex carbs before they reach the stomach. In the wild they get partially digested plants from a prey’s stomach, so the job is done for them. In commercial feeds the grain is cooked so they can get something from it, though using this as a energy source overworks a dogs pancreas and causes lactic acid build-up (this is why puppy and working foods have more protein in them).

Unlike commercial feeds the diet balances itself more naturally over a week or so like it would for a wild dog and provides all the requirements of a dog in a totally natural form without the need to supplement.

It is often a lot cheaper to feed raw than commercial diets, especially as the butcher has to pay to get rid of all that lovely human grade food. There are health benefits from feeding raw including; the teeth are cleaned, the coat hugely improved, the immune system is boosted, the dog is satisfied by it’s meals and the pops are firm, lower in volume and far far less offensive and very unlikely to stick on your shoe!

Chicken is best as it contains more essential nutrients than lamb or beef and beef bones come from older animals and are very hard, chickens are also quite young when killed and the bones are soft, chicken wings or carcasses are ideal and they provide the correct meat to bone ratio. Lamb ribs are also very good. Bones should never be fed cooked as this changes them to hard brittle and dangerous. Nor should raw be fed anywhere near dried food as they travel at different speeds and real problems can result.

If you are interested I can post a diet sheet and links to reference material.

Here is another very useful site that compares commercial dog food on a star system
Site posted here by Slimjim recently http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
It is a US site but some of the feeds available in the UK are on here and Eukanuba scores pretty low. I have personal knowledge of this brand in the past!

 

[Vetty]

Karyn, thank yo for posting such a detailed response and giving me some real food for thought (excuse the pun!). I am interested in a raw diet sheet, but I also have a load more questions! I think I will arrange them in my head and then PM you if that's ok?

Thanks again and I'll be in touch, Yvette x