Intermittant Diahorrea

[Stitch]

One of my lot, a female 15 months old is really puzzling me.

She is in general good health, active and happy but every few weeks, overnight, she poos in her crate and it can be quite sloppy.

This dog has the exact same things to eat every day at the same time....it never varies.

She is usually very clean overnight, no accidents at all except for these occasional poos.

She can go 3-4 weeks without any problems, and then there it is in the morning!!

She is a dog that does very well on her food and her poos are usually small and dry.

She gets 1/8th cup Royal Canin of a morning and BARF of an evening.

It has me beat why she has this pooing problem....anyone got any ideas??

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

I found that changing the dry dog food I was feeding - from advance to nutro natural choice - stopped the fortnightly runs my dog was getting.

I have no idea why - both dog foods are made by the same corporation (Mars) - probably in the same factory tho nutro is supposed to have better quality ingredients in it eg chicken meat not meal - earlier in the ingredient list.

My dog does do a bit of foraging and will eat grass clippings or any other rubbish she gets to before I do at the park - though I try to limit this by keeping her on lead when there's more trash around. So it's not an every day thing. And successful foraging does not always equate to runny poo.

I currently feed black hawk holistic with no runny poo problems - unless she gets a lot of something contraband or spikey - like bones or fertilizer.

Sometimes dogs get the runs from stress.

[Stitch]

Yes, I agree with all you have said...thing is that she was on Eagle Pack dry as all my other dogs eat that so I changed her to Royal Canin and it is still happening.

I can't see that she is under any more stress from one day to the next.

I had one girl once that used to love to eat the palm nuts but I haven't seen this girl eat anything from the ground. I have taken to watching her when she is outside and I don't see her foraging....although she is a dog that is very fond of food. I do have to limit the amount of dryfood she eats as she really puts on weight easily.

The reason I give her any dry food at all is because my other dogs get fed at the same time and she can't bear to go without, so she only gets a little bit to keep her happy.

[SkySoaringMagpie]

When we had this problem, it was to do with our supply of raw, not the kibble.

We switched suppliers of our RMBs after switching a bunch of other stuff, and only then did the problem right itself. While I know dogs can tolerate a lot, I suspect our previous supplier wasn't too careful about storage.

I would also rule out other issues like Giardia, do the birds bath in their water?

[Stitch]

Yes, Magpie, sourcing raw diets can be difficult. We went through that years ago so I switched over to Big Dog BARF which comes prepared and frozen. This is what I feed all my lot of an evening and no one else has a diahorrea problem whatsoever.

As far as the birds are concerned....they have to be pretty brave to go near any of the dog water dishes. My lot all hate birds and protect their area especially this young girl, so no birds don't go anywhere near my dogs unless they have a death wish!! :laugh:

ETA: Just to clarify, all my guys get fed the same type of food ie. dry in the morning and the main meal of BARF of an evening, just the quantities will vary a little dependant on the dog. I use the dry just to fine tune their diet/condition so they don't get a huge quantity of it.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Stitch

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Maybe it's a gut enzyme thing?

Would a daily spoonful of yogurt or maybe mashed pumpkin help?

[Stitch]

That's a thought Rusty, I have some Protexin I will add that to her BARF for a while.

It can't hurt and may help.....good thinking!

I was also wondering if Big Dog Rabbit BARF had any liver in it. Liver is something that can cause diahorrea in dogs.