Ok, so seriously, how normal is this?

Fools Motto

Fools Motto

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As most of you know, we have a springer spaniel. She is just over a year old, and has been very good with almost everything. (we had a rough start - another story, but that is all smoothed out now, and we all love her).
Anyhow, her issues, yet again revolve around toileting. How delightful! This issue has been going on a very long time, the vet has been told and assures us it is indeed 'normal' as she is healthy, bright etc...
We let her out first thing, she usually does a poo - the sort you can trip over, all good. She then might have her breakie, unless she had it before she wanted to go out. She will then want to play with her tennis ball, or sit and wait to leave for her walk. Everyday during this time, she will rush out and frantically do another poo - on the go, so it is all over the place and this is the sort you slip up in. It is very smelly, very vomit-inducing for me when I clear it up. I have to hose it, as no poo-picking equipment gets it.
Take her out for an hour, she will do another poo, often a firm egg-cup full, followed by about 20 mins of another loose one. She then would do a 'normal' firm one mid afternoon, and a normal firm one late walk. I know she poo's a lot, been told some do. It's the inconsistancy of the poo that puzzles me. Firm or runny within moments.
She is worse when fed beef, so she is on chicken both breakie and dinner, with a small amount of Chappie - under breeders instruction, and has been for some time. She is also tiny at 11kg?
 
Hmmm. Interesting. We have an airedale and they are prone to looser poop but we seem to have fixed upon the correct feeding to firm them up. He generally only does one or two on morning walk (second looser than the first) but if you go for an extra long one you get little bits of slop.

First thoughts are diet. Might be worth changing your mixer meal away from chappie. It could also be worth feeding a raw egg once a day to help bind everything up (this has really helped our boy and it uses up an extra egg every day from the madly laying chickens!).
I don't know much about broth but could there be extra oils etc in it that could be affecting the gut? Like too much palm oil in people.

For info we have got better poops by feeding forthglade with a mixer meal (terrier meal) and he gets a tray and two scoops of mixer spread over morning and evening and an egg on his dinner. This has firmed up his poop so that even poop 2 can be picked up and bagged.
 
Sounds like she's getting too much of something and it's going through her. That's a lot of poo for a small dog. Mine would have a second runny poo in the morning if I gave him more food than normal but he never goes more than three times a day.

Is it dry Chappie? It's not great. And what sort of chicken? Cooked? Raw?

Also some pooing can be caused by stress. And stress can be caused by anything and not things a human would construe as being stressful...a noisy or busy household, slippery floors, bright lights etc.

I also feed eggs and that does help.
 
When mine was on kibble this would happen a lot. He'd do a big "normal" poo (which, now that he's on raw, I'd be horrified by the size, texture and smell of!). Then a little while later would do masses of very loose stuff, which you could barely pick up in a bag and was, as you say, vom-inducing. This would be especially marked if he'd been running around a lot, I think perhaps the exercise/excitement getting his digestive system working faster.

Now that's he's on raw he does small, hard, non-smelly poos every time.

As above, I would remove the Chappie (whether dry or tinned), switch to raw food only (I'm assuming yours isn't on raw, sorry, it doesn't state in your OP), feeding bones to harden the stool up, and maybe an egg once or twice per week, and see if that helps.
 
I would put her on a really good kibble, millie wolfheart (I have become a disciple, thanks to Thistle eventually nagging me into trying it) is great, excellent ingredients and very helpful if you phone them. Much less lawn clearing up. I think life is too short for raw so always recommend dry food.
 
Would agree it could be due to diet. Doesn't sound like a great complete diet either.

I would change to a good quality dog food and see if that makes a difference.

Don't suppose she has been tested for food intolerances at all?
 
I also feed Millies wolfheart now. Very pleased with it. Tinned chappie used to be recommended for upset tums but there are much better quality alternatives now.
I would change her food to something better because that amount of poo is not normal.
If you change her food and she's still got a problem you should get a fecal sample sent to vet as she could have a bug that the vet would not know about without testing ie campylobactor Tec.
Also she's not eating poo is she? If so she could have a bacterial overgrowth.
 
The question of Chappie as a dog food is interesting. I've never fed it but those who have and who's opinions I'd value, tell me that its' excellent at 'drying-up' a dog which has very loose bowel movements. I wonder how this is achieved. I can't believe that any commercially produced tinned meat is really any different from any other in the materials used.

Generally when we have any young animal which is scouring or is particularly loose, then an inclusion of salt in a drench generally dries them up pdq. I see that Chappie, according to the manufacturers, contains 0.45% sodium which I wouldn't have thought would be enough to affect an outcome.

Are there any canine dieticians out there who can explain just why Chappie should be the apparent wonder-cure that it is, for the squits?

Back to the OP, and I'm not a dietician in any sense, but it sounds to me as though you are overloading your dog's system with protein. Why at the age that she is are you feeding more than once a day? There really is no need for it in the normal adult and healthy dog, no need at all. Dogs simply don't need the '3 square-meals-a-day' thing, and come to that, neither do most humans! It may well be habit and practice, but it does us and them no good at all.

Alec.
 
I had a little mongrel bitch back in the 90s who looked a million bucks on tinned Chappie. She was a fit as anything, covered in muscle with a great coat. I considered it for my last little dog but decided there were better alternatives these days- plus I suspected a chicken allergy so put her on RAW and she did well on it.

Chappie has alot of whole grain maize (and wheat) in it which I expect is what dries them up.

Pup is currently on MWH, more for its user friendliness at work and he's fine on it. Might be worth trying something other than chicken (Chappie original also contains chicken if I remember rightly).
 
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