Hi all, Don't read if you are eating!!! Ever since we have had him Harvey's poo has always been a little on the loose side. Not sloppy but certainly not something that you could kick over with your foot (if you felt so inclined!). A week or so ago it became very loose; not liquid but not really something that you could pick up in a poo bag either. Sometimes the would be fairly solid poo to start with and then a couple of steps away before doing a second, looser poo. Being the novice dog owners that we are we tried the chicken and rice approach that I've seen recommended but this didn't really seem to help so we went to the vets and were told it may be improved by a change of food. We have been using Alpha Sporting Puppy and the vet has suggested Hill's Science Large Breed. We're feeding a mix of both at the moment. Today's motions were very loose again - over how long a period should we by moving from one to the other?
Re: Perplexing puppy poo Hope you resolve it - I don't have experience with the food you mention. One thought which might be worth mentioning though: Charlie gets those symptoms when he has been overfed. It doesn't have to be a lot of extra food, just a bit. The solid poo to start, followed by loose poo can be due to too much food.
Re: Perplexing puppy poo Julie makes a good point. We changed food a few times as a puppy and tried to do it over a week to 10 days, BUT no matter how slow she ALWAYS had loose poop until well established. Changing as an adult dog - well, relatively speaking - we had a lot less problem. I suppose my take home message is really that no matter how slow you do it, there may well be some side effects. I would be interested to hear if others changed over without such problems, just curiosity....
Re: Perplexing puppy poo I've never changed food over in less than 10 days,except once when I changed from the puppy to the adult to food of the same brand....don't know what I was thinking I just swapped him straight over :-[ it's still a change.Ive only done 2 changes and Dexter was looser all the way through until he'd been on the new diet exclusively for about a week ...then he returned to what I consider to be his normal which is probably still slightly looser than real 'normal ...' Dexter does have a sensitive tummy and he is fed on a gastro intestinal diet which he's done the best on x
Re: Perplexing puppy poo A changeover of food should take an absolute minimum of 7 days, and that's usually if you know the dog has a solid stomach to begin with. For a dog with poo issues I would say about two weeks. If the poo starts off solid and then ends with a runny bit then that is a sign of over feeding. Try cutting down each meal by about a handful of biscs or so and see how you go. The measurements on the back of the pack don't suit every dog - mine says my dog should be fed 100g per meal... If I did that she be as fat as a house!!! Hills science plan is a fairly reputable brand, but it doesn't suit all dogs. What one dog does well on, another one may not so it's about what works for your dog and produces those nice firm 'kickable' poos we want! On a side note I think it's generally not recommended that labs be fed a large breed diet as they are not technically a large breed. It's usually designed for things like mastiffs and Great Danes. I know some of our labs are pretty big at their adult weight but they're still only classed as a medium breed dog.
Re: Perplexing puppy poo Thanks for the feedback. So, not too much and slowly, slowly is the way forward.
Re: Perplexing puppy poo Hey UncleBob, I registered especially so I could reply to you! Feel special? Lol ;-) My pup Gemma has exactly the same issue and exactly the same feed! How old is Harley may I ask? I'm adding 2+2 and getting 5 that our pups may be from the same breeder, if you're using a.s.p. to continue the breeders choice, as it seems quite a rare one. The thing with Gemma is it's come and go. But in Gemma's case I think we're fairly stable with the feeding qty. It's her first poo in the morning that is always loose, followed by another couple of squats of VERY loose. It's the worst pick up job of the day it's a 3-in-1! But they tend to firm up very nicely as the day goes by. I'd have thought that if I was overfeeding it would show up consistently as each meal makes it's way through? I am happy to stand corrected from anyone who knows better, she's my first pup it's all a massive learning experience for me! Are you trying the switch to Hills? Would be very interested to know how that goes. It's hard to know who/what to believe, because my own vet warned me against Hills. He reckoned for Labs which are so well known to gain excess weight so easily, it is such a high quality food that it's basically too good for them! He wouldn't have a problem recommended it for breeds that are typically leaner, but not a lab, apparently. I'm not sure I can make sense of that, wouldn't the answer just be to lower the portion size? I dunno... just passing on what he said, those aren't my words. I'm in the process of changing Gemma onto fish4dogs. It's proving quite a long changeover, 4 weeks so far (!) because I have more a.s.p. left then I realised! I introduced the new food a littler earlier than I should have really, but wanted to try out a new choice prematurely to make sure she got on with it OK. I've just stepped up to a 50/50 mix and she'll be 100% over in another fortnight or so. The results so far, well, things are certainly no worse at the rear end, no side effects per se. She's definitely got firmer during the rest of the day since introducing some fish4dogs. Not "kickable" but easier to pick up. But like I say, it's just that first poop of the day that's always very messy, it was before, and it still is during the change over mixing. Guess I'll know for sure when she's 100% over to fish4dogs. I also moisten her food, because she just hoovers it, barely any chewing, and had a little choke and a cough sometimes before I started doing that. I wonder also if that can work against her firmness? My only other thought, I don't know if this applies to you or not. She's a terror for munching on crap in the garden, dirt, twigs, leaves, worms. I'm trying very hard to discourage it, and if she does have a loose one during the day (it happens from time to time) I sometimes wonder if it's caused by the aforementioned and not the food, or qty. Or overdoing it with training treats. Argh I wish I knew. Hopefully I'll figure it one day, maybe we can share our experiences seeing as we have at least two things in common! Best wishes to you both.
Re: Perplexing puppy poo If your pup eats too quickly it might be worth investing in a kong wobbler. The dog has to knock it over and roll it around to get their food out. It used to take Harley 45 seconds to eat her food from a bowl, it now takes about 5-10 mins in a wobbler
Re: Perplexing puppy poo Hi John, Thank you for your response (and for registering). Harvey is a little over 5 months old. His poos have greatly improved recently. The trouble is we made the classic mistake of stopping everything at the same time so its made it difficult to identify a specific cause. However, we've decided that two things (possibly in combination) probably resulted in the very loose motions: 1. We had given Harv his monthly worming tablet. 2. We had tried some new (to us) Wagg low fat treats. The whole episode has made us a lot more aware of what we feed Harvey and we are now looking much more closely at the choice of food and treats. Had a good chat with a local pet store owner who seemed very knowledgeable and also looking through the info at http://www.whichdogfood.co.uk/ . It looks as if most of the treats we use are, frankly, rubbish from a nutritional perspective. And I'm doubting the wisdom of the Hill's choice for his main food - looks like lots of maize and salt in it. Its certainly a learning experience.
Re: Perplexing puppy poo Glad to see your poo issues seem to be working themselves out. It's scary when you start to research the stuff you are putting into your dog isn't it? Wagg doesn't have a great reputation to begin with so I've always avoided that, I thought I'd be pretty safe with pedigree - schmackos and markies, but markies can give diarrhoea and schmackos can cause hyperactivity because of the ingredients in them. To be safe, for a long time I just stuck to using Penny's kibble as her treats (taking it out of her daily food allowance so as to avoid the diarrhoea caused by overfeeding) and then I saw someone on here mention little liver pills by Barker and Barker. They are absolutely fab! 100% natural with no wheat or gluten or any nasties. You should check them out, they do loads of varieties. If you're worried about what goes into your pup you can be fairly certain that these are prett good!
