Saturday, October 17th, 2020
Working in the field of canine nutrition and formulating dog diets extends itself to being a bit of a detective at times.
Every dog can have a lousy stool now and then and some dogs with GI diseases may have them more often, but what about dogs that are ‘fine’ except for having incredibly soft stools every 1-3 months? These stools may be watery or have mucus and last 1-4 days or so. Then everything looks great again. It’s frustrating for dog parents and we suspect the dog’s not overly happy about it either! From our perspective, not knowing if the dog reacted to a food or something else prolongs finding a solution.
We ask if the dog has been dewormed and are often told the fecal test was negative, so there was no reason to do so. Here’s what we want you to know: Read more Dogs With Bad Poops
Thursday, March 22nd, 2018
Why does my dog eat poop? How do I stop my dog from eating poop?
These are two very popular questions that dog owners with poop eating dogs ask on a daily basis.
Why dogs do it is unknown. Regardless of who says otherwise, it’s really not factual. Some say it’s because puppies see their mothers doing it when mom cleans the pups, and they start to imitate her. Others say dogs eat stool because instinct drives them to remove anything that might identify them to another dog, or different species. Yet others claim it’s due to the diet being fed (which actually can have some impact), or that the dog is missing something in the diet.
Read more 6 Ways to Stop Dogs From Eating Poop
Tuesday, July 29th, 2014
Poopsicles…they’d make a million dollars for anyone who had the gumption to sell them. Dogs that eat poop are even wilder about the morsels when they’re frozen which makes us wonder why…but then we wonder why on earth they eat poop to begin with. Here are 6 possibilities and some thoughts:
1. Boredom
2. Do away with evidence that can bring punishment (even disapproval may be seen as punishment)
3. Because the dog thinks it tastes good. Let’s face it – dog’s don’t have the same taste preferences we do. Read more Why Do Dogs Eat Poop?
Tuesday, August 21st, 2012
Put down your coffee cup or whatever you may be eating. We’re about to get into the nitty gritty about dog poop. For 20+ years, I lived with dogs that had gastrointestinal (GI) diseases, so poop-patrol was a serious part of life. If you have one of these dogs, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You feel trepidation every time the dog defecates, stare at it, and pick through it with a stick if you can pick through it at all.
Many of my clients have dogs with GI diseases, and they try to be delicate when describing the stool, but after so many years of dealing with this, and especially with the addition of another 14+ years of working with clients, there’s probably nothing I haven’t seen or heard. Some clients become so frustrated by trying to find the right words that they resort to taking pictures and sending them to me so I can see for myself. My favorite was a picture of bright blue stool. Perfectly shaped mind you, but incredibly blue. Turned out the dog had counter surfed when a blueberry pie was sitting there and…well, you can guess the rest. Read more Stool Chart aka Dog Poop Chart
Monday, October 24th, 2011
People send me a lot of emails about their dog’s stool. Sometimes, they send pictures of it. No, I’m not kidding. They want to know if the poop looks to be the right color, texture, etc. They’re worred (I get it) and even more so if they’ve read something on the internet about what the perfect stool looks like and Fido produces anything different from that.
The latest cause for their concern comes from a site that states healthy stool must be hard/firm and brown, but it must turn white within a day and disintegrate within two days. Anything other than that is considered to be bad. So, now we have not only a description, but a timetable to follow! Seriously?
Normally, stool is brown due to a series of reactions in the body, and to bacteria present. Read more The Scoop on Dog Poop
