Hi, we've got an 8 week old puppy, who has been with us three days, his name is Rolo. He has had a vet check yesterday 2nd June, had his worm tab on the 1st and his flea/tick tab today the 3rd June. The vet check was a visual one, no blood tests, and some of the stool samples from day 1 and 2 were provided to the vet also (no tests taken, only visual inspection). The stools are a mix of soft, but formed starting off brown in colour then going soft yellow/green, with some mucous. Some of them have been dark brown all through but a bit soft. It's been about 50:50. The vet advised that this is likely due to the change in environment related stress/adaptation. He was also a bit constipated today, 3rd June with the last one, which was the brown, green/yellow mix. He is being fed Royal Canin labrador puppy kibble. We want to move him to a more mixed diet of chicken rice, kibble etc. when he's a bit older. Royal Canin kibble seems to be recommended by vets and breeders here (Sydney Australia), so assume it's ok. Has anyone experienced this with regard to lab stool? Should it be looked into further? He also loves to pick leaves, bark, dried tree stuff (branches with dried seed) in his mouth when on his poo run in the garden. The distraction techniques work sometime but by and large I spend time trying to get to it before he does or grab it out of his mouth (which isn't great, as he may then swallow it!). Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
It is best to always have a pup trailing a 2.5m puppy house line - these are made by Clix. You should take hold of that and wait in one spot in the yard until the pup has toileted. If you want to allow free time in the yard, it should be after the toileting and not before. If the pup picks stuff up you don't want him to have, you should grab hold of the house line (which is much easier than chasing a puppy and much less destructive to your relationship with him) and then take a treat from your pocket (which you should always have) and get a 'drop' on the item he has by putting the food on his nose. With the poop, I would generally wait and see which direction it goes in. Borderline poos either tend to get better or worse... I don't personally feed kibble as I think raw is the healthiest way to feed a dog. And I most definitely don't consider what most vets recommend (with food or many other things!) to be my own preferred choice. But, if you do want to feed a kibble, I'd suggest one which doesn't have such a high and mixed grain content as Royal Canin and has a higher meat content instead, and one which has a simple ingredient list which you yourself recognise and might consider eating(!). But I wouldn't switch his food whilst he is settling in and also has poo issues at the moment, wait for that to settle.
We're at 15 weeks with our lab puppy and have had almost identical issues that you describe. We were feeding her Hill's Science dry kibble but her stools were often soft, sometimes with a clear mucus and sometimes with a streak of blood. We spoke to the vet and they advised Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Gastrointestinal canned wet food for a week, along with a pre & probiotic paste to add to her food. After about 10 days, she's completely back to normal. This particular Pro Plan wet food is only designed to be temporary so we have slowly switched her to a non-grain dry kibble now and she absolutely loves it and is having no more issues - Pooch and Mutt Health and Digestion. I can't be sure it was the Hill's Science kibble that was causing the issue but it does have a lot of mixed grains in it. It could also have been her settling in to her new home, which our vet said can take some puppies several weeks to adjust to.
Hi, we had poo issues the first week with Fitz but quickly realised he was occasionally chomping on ivy in the garden which is apparently poisonous so worth doing a quick garden check!
Thankyou everyone, for your advice and sharing your experiences. Rolo seems to have settled into a better Poo routine. Four to five times as day now, and it is of the expected consistency. We had one hiccup when a lawn-mover was used in the garden where it reverted for a couple, but is back to 'normal'. Thanks Jo for the advice on kibble and raw food. I'm not brave enough to go all the way with raw food, but a blander diet with some wet and cooked food (chicken/meat/rice and a bit of kibble), was where my head was at. I'm not sure when to start that - in a month or two - make a gradual transition. I also like the advice around kibble treats to place on his nose - to distract him from chewing leaves, and more recently uprooting grass roots. Our current mission right now, is to distract Rolo from chewing things indoors that he shouldn't including hands, arms, feet and legs. He gets held to calm him down, given distraction toys, but then gets distracted and has about a five-ten minute time out in his play pen, where he is generally well behaved. He then comes out and goes to sleep. He is slowly getting the hang of it, but I'm worried that he may get too subdued, dejected with this approach (or is that just me over-thinking?). We are both working from home, so take turns at giving him playtime, but then he tends to escalate into overdrive, which is why he then needs to have about four-five timeouts a day. We are training him as time allows, - he is beginning to grasping sit, wait and come - but it isn't near enough I don't think, which is why he may be going into over-drive.
