Hello all, I've had some really helpful advice from you before on preventing separation anxiety with our fox red lab puppy Wilson so I'm hoping you can help again. Wilson is now 19 weeks old and is doing really well. But he has difficulty poo-ing a lot of the time. He will do a little poo and then remain in the squatting position and sort of waddle around leaving a little trail of tiny poos. They are generally very soft too. Occasionally he drags his bottom briefly after finishing. We took him to the vet last Tuesday, after ringing first, and the vet expressed his anal sacs. She said there wasn't a lot in there but they did seem to be slightly out of position. She thought he should be OK and said there isn't a lot of knowledge about what causes this or what can be done. Wilson was fine the following day, pooing normally with just one or two squats, but on the second day he was back to doing his trailing around in the squat position. I was just wondering whether anyone has any experience of this and whether there is something we can do at home before going back to the vets (we had rather a nasty shock at how much we were charged for that visit). Wilson is fed on Skinners Field & Trial puppy food, has a few puppy treats a day, and occasionally some minced beef and roast chicken but only once a week if that. He drinks plenty of water. Oh and in his Kong I tend to put banana and peanut butter but he only has that every few days. He also eats ice cubes. He has been wormed every month. Oh and he does terrible farts! Sorry about the nature of this post! Any help or advice much appreciated!
We love a good poo thread. What are his poos like consistency wise - hard pellets or squishy? Mine does the poo walk only when not emptying properly because she has been eating long grass. Possibly adding some roughage could help? Lightly cooked carrots in the kong instead of the banana and peanut butter?
What are his poos like consistency wise - hard pellets or squishy? Thanks for the reply. He occasionally does a good solid dark poo but the trailing squats are quite sloppy and gingery-coloured. That's a good suggestion on lightly cooked carrots. We'll try that thanks!
H produces very smelly farts when she's been scavenging. Is there any possibility that Wilson has found something illicit to eat? When poos are sloppy we've always put our dogs on boiled rice for 24 hours. Its very bland for the stomach and a good source of roughage, as Jacqui suggested.
There's every possibility lol as he always seems to find something to eat when we're out walking and I can't always catch it in time to see what it is. He was sick yesterday after his evening meal and we're pretty sure that was from finding something in our local fields. This is probably a daft question but is microwaveable rice OK or does it need to be rice boiled in water? I'd like to try the rice. Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.
My puppy had some looser poo when he was a bit younger (just turned 20 weeks today!) and I started adding roasted sweet potato to his Kongs and food and it seemed to firm him right up! Canned pumpkin is also recommended, but we haven’t tried it since sweet potatoes are easy to roast until soft and fill Kongs with.
Microwave is fine, as @Hollysdad says, but I would add extra water. When I give chicken and rice, I keep it really sloppy so I know the pup is getting plenty of hydration. If this is an ongoing thing, though, and a bug has been ruled out, I'd say there's something in his diet that isn't agreeing with him. The farting would also be a good indicator of this. Poos shouldn't be consistently soft - and being so won't help the anal gland problem as firm poos help to empty them naturally. I would exclude everything from his diet except kibble - you can put soaked kibble in his kongs. Give it a week and if there's no change, consider changing the protein source of the food. If it's chicken, try fish, for example. If you stay in the same brand, you shouldn't have to be so careful with phasing from one flavour to another. If this doesn't fix the problem (and, again, assuming that bugs have been ruled out by your vet), then I'd try a different brand of kibble.
Thank you so much. He is still producing good solid poos but they seem to alternate with more sloppy ones that he trails around doing. The only other thing we wondered was whether adding those Australian dog rocks to his water might have had an effect? We added them on Dec 11th though and this soft poo thing only started a couple of weeks ago. I forgot to ask the vet whether that could have been a contributing factor. He's drinking plenty of water, enjoying his food, his coat looks great and he is generally very well so it's all a bit puzzling. If it doesn't improve in the next few days we'll talk to the vet again. Thanks for the help.
@Jenem , I definitely agree with this. Cassie, now 20 months, was on Skinners Trial etc puppy for a while and then Maintenance for a while. She did fart quite a bit and her poo's were quite soft, not runny and very, very malodorous, and she did show signs of anal gland issues, not dragging herself along but very urgently biting her bottom. All of that has stopped since changing to Burns, if I can prevent her supplementing her diet with rotting apples and the occasional dog poo (big sigh) her poo is small, hard and has virtually no odour, the latter to the extent that I even forgot I had a bag of poo in the car last week! Sometimes if it's really firm I can see fluid being excreted as she eliminates, I assume that is from the anal sac. This is not to say of course, that Skinners is bad, plenty of people on here feed another variety of Skinners with good effect, or that Burns is all singing all dancing, but it does seem to suit Cassie -- seems to do what it says on the bag for her
Yup, it's all about finding what suits your dog! Mine used to be on Burns and Shadow could have powered Greater London with the amount of wind he created! There is no "perfect" food, it's about what works for the individual. We can agonise over finding the best food possible, but if it doesn't suit your dog, then even the most highly-rated food in the world might as well be the worst. I just had a look up and the regular puppy food from Skinner's is chicken-based. Chicken is often a "problem" protein for dogs. Maybe think about changing to the duck and rice one and see how you go for a while?
Thanks Selina. We're getting to the end of a big bag of Skinners Puppy so I think we'll try slowly swapping over to another feed. Will have a look at Burns. Many thanks.
Thanks Fiona, that's very interesting. Trying a different flavour, same brand, sounds like a good idea to begin with. He's been on the Skinners chicken since we picked him up at 8 weeks (and he was on that at the breeders) so it is fairly normal for a puppy to be OK on something for a while and then not be OK? It seems a bit weird that he has been fine on it for weeks and suddenly not. Thanks.
Well, I've never looked into this, so it might be hokum, but I've heard that vaccinations can cause dogs to reject proteins they're eating at the time of the injections. So if your dog was on a chicken diet during his vax, then those vaccines may cause him to become intolerant to chicken. I'll look into it and see if I can find any truth to it.... one day The other thing is that if your dog does have a minor allergy to something, then continued exposure to the allergen can exacerbate it. So it's certainly not unusual that he'd be OK on something for a while before becoming symptomatic with it.
OK, one very quick Google search (I've not read any more than skimming the first few paragraphs) "Evidence that Food Proteins in Vaccines Cause the Development of Food Allergies and Its Implications for Vaccine Policy" https://vaccinesafetycommission.org/pdfs/08-2015-Journal-Food-Allergies.pdf
Hmm, that's really interesting. And thanks for the link in your next post. We'll definitely change his main food gradually and see what happens. Thanks for all the help - it's reassuring as well to get such great feedback and hopefully some solutions.
