I have a friend who tells me this was normal for her little shitzu when she was a puppy and she grew out of it, but I’m wondering if this is normal. When our Sadie (3 months old now) poops, usually the first section of poop is formed and normal and easy to pick up, but then she’ll make one or two more piles that are juicy and we have to spray down the stuff all mushed into the grass in our backyard. No other symptoms like vomiting, poor appetite, painful belly, etc. She has also had a negative fecal test about a week ago. She did have a uti at the beginning of the month that was treated with antibiotics and is cleared and now she has a yeast ear infection if any of that matters, but her poop has been like this since before any of that. Any thoughts?
Could be you're slightly overfeeding her, or her little tummy can't cope with the amount of food in each meal. How many times are you feeding her? You could try splitting the same amount of food over an extra meal. Little and often is much easier on them.
Ok, maybe I’ll try less food more often. She gets one cup of dry in the morning at about 8am and she also gets just a few spoonfuls of wet as a treat at that time as well, one cup dry around 1:30pm, and 1/2 cup dry in the evening at about 6:30pm.
It could also be that you're over-feeding... So - not just splitting the same amount into smaller meals, but try reducing the amount of food. Soft poops like this can also happen due to excitement, heat, etc etc - basically the poop near the anus has been there longer and had more time for the water to get absorbed from it. The poop higher up, should really stay in there longer but the gut moves it along too fast in some circumstances... Is this happening after a play session, or when she is excited to go out, or is it particularly hot...?
It seemed to kind of come and go, but when we go outside she always goes potty first before play starts. A day after I started feeding her the same amount over 4 feedings instead of 3, she had a whole 2 days of perfect poops! So I thought that must have been the trick. Then the next day we’d have mostly perfect with maybe the last poop of the day runny. Now today we’ve had 1 runny, one mostly decent (by decent I mean formed and I’m able to pick it up and not have a smear left in the grass still), and then *7* runny! We already have an appointment with the vet on Tuesday for a check on her ear infection so I’ll bring it up then. And maybe tomorrow I’ll try feeding her less overall. She’s otherwise great! No vomiting, tons of energy, no pain or loss of appetite - that’s for sure! We have had nice weather this week in the mid-70’s (Fahrenheit). So not too hot and we’re supposed to start cooling down now for fall.
