My girlfriend and I have a 6 month old "Goldador" (half black lab, half golden retriever) who has been having issues with soft stool for quite some time. We are pretty sure this has to with his diet and not worms/disease - as we have gotten his stool checked at least 5 times over the last few months. His attitude is great and he has plenty of energy - it's just the soft stool (and some occasional diaharea) that's the issue. When we first picked him up - the breeder had him on Tractor Supply Labrador high protein mix - which was cheap and clearly not the best food for him. We kept him on this for a couple weeks when we brought him home and slowly transitioned him to Fromms large breed puppy food - as our local pet store owners recommended. During this time he was having stool issues on and off, soft stool some days normal other days. This went on for a little while and we had his stool checked for worms on multiple occasions - coming back negative. The vet was little to no help which was very disappointing - recommending that we switch him over to Purina or Iams, which we've heard bad things about. A couple of weeks ago we decided to feed him a chicken and rice diet to cleanse his system (which was a lot of work).We did this for about 2 weeks and it seemed to work great - normal stool the whole time. Over the last several days we've been transitioning him off of chicken and rice and into Natural Balance Limited ingredient (chicken and sweet potato) - which was recommended by a friend whose dog also had stool issues. It was going great as we started the transition, and we started feeding him about half rice and half kibble. When we started to add more kibble and less rice his stool started to become soft again, and we're worried that once he's back to straight kibble he will be back at square one. Also not sure if it's a great idea to continue to feed him half rice and kibble for too long - I've heard it can cause health problems? We're hoping someone has some experience with this issue and can offer some guidance - as we want to nip this in the bud as soon as we can, and our vet is not offering any useful help. Would love to avoid having to cook chicken and rice for the little guy all the time. Thank you so much for your help!
Hello and welcome to the forum. It sounds like you've been having a frustrating time trying to get it sorted. It's not unusual for puppies to have soft stools, but it does sound like there's an ongoing problem. Has he been tested for gastro-intstinal problems, such as colitis or giardia? If he has something like this, a course of meds will be the answer to clearing it up quite quickly. Otherwise, maybe look at how much he is eating. Over-feeding in Labrador puppies is a very common cause of soft stools. How many meals a day does he have? It may be that splitting the meals up into smaller portions spread throughout the day is all that you need to fix it. Puppy tummies aren't able to cope very well with large meals, which is why "little and often" is generally advised while they're young.
Hi and welcome to the forum, from our little pack, Benson, Casper and Bramble. It is not uncommon for youngsters to suffer from soft stools at that age, like children they seem prone to it. We had a similar problem with our younger lab Bramble, and a few others on the forum have had pups with sensitive tums. As long as the soft stools are not related to overfeeding, or a pup having two few meals, as small tums can't cope with large amounts, you can look at diet. As a single protein, simple diet ie: chicken and rice has suited your pup, I would to find something similar in kibble, in fact that is what we did with Bramble. We went for a quality kibble, single source protein (in this case duck) grain free and containing the right ratio of minerals for a large breed puppy.
Are you feeding him adult or puppy brand? Those do make a difference. Looking at pet food advisor it appears that the brand you're feeding is like of low grade to medium grade. If you can afford it, I would suggest a change again to something higher in the grade charts. I started out with Blue Baffalo and then switched to Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Boost (Dry) This is a highly rated 5 star dog food which yours only got between 2 and 3 stars. There are graphs and pie charts containing information about what is in the dog food as well so check out their site. Stryker has not had a poo (wet or soft) stool since. He gets between 3/4 to 1 cup a day twice a day. He's at the ideal shape (weight), he's healthy (most important) and he's got plenty of energy to last him through out the day. I've also been using the little meat clumps as threats and he loves it. Every pet store that offers this brand that I've been in thus far has offered the trial size. I keep his dog food in the freezer too just because we had a really bad ant problem one morning and I lost an entire bag of food that I had just opened the night before. No issues with him eating or digesting it either. Good luck!
I had two dogs with sensitive tummies. I cooked (or did BARF) for them their whole lives... in the end it was worked best for us. But now that I'm temporarily dog-less, just about the only thing I don't miss is having to cook and de-bone five chickens a week! But if you want to do kibble, you could always mix in a few fresh things to help digestion. Pureed pumpkin is easy and works a charm. Sweet potatoes are OK - I didn't try them much as they are hard to find here. While dogs don't need grains and normally I didn't feed them (this includes rice) for some reason I found that steel-cut oatmeal (not that instant stuff) cooked a LONG time until it was super soft, was also really helpful. I found probiotics to be a lifesaver on the digestion front, though they are expensive. I do think it's hard to get a good quality one that actually does what it says and doesn't contain any weird filler (like sugar). I found an Italian one that was perfect, but that's not going to help you. Finally, coconut oil (human consumption grade) also seemed to help - not to cure a bad tummy, but to keep it running well once I got the tummy clear. I've also heard that cottage cheese or live-culture yoghurt is good, but my dog turned into a vomit geyser if I fed him anything dairy. Ditto with normal potatoes. No bueno. I'll tell you a funny thing - I've found vets to be great with acute tummy issues but more or less useless when it comes to chronic tummy issues. The above "remedies" are from talking to others and basic trial and error. What vets say to feed an upset tummy varies by country, by the way: "chicken and rice" is standard US and Spain, "liver and potatoes" was advice I got in Germany, and "tripe and pasta" is what I was told in Italy.
Do you think it is OK to freeze the chicken and rice mix in a Kong? Would it make any difference if it is frozen when you are trying to treat diarrhea?
Yes, no problem, I'd say. I've frozen it in kongs before now, although not during treating sensitive tummies. I don't see why it should cause ay other issues, though.
