Our guest post comes from Caleb Anderson, of Top Dog Retrievers in Red Bluff, California. Caleb has been training working dogs for over 15 years. His dog training career started with the training and competition of hunt test retrievers. This quickly led to the training of other working dogs including Search and Rescue, cadaver and scent detection dogs. Caleb now oversees the training at Top Dog Retrievers where he trains dogs for everything from basic obedience to diabetic alert, autism, therapy, and competition field dogs.
Upset stomach and loose stools in canines can be caused by a number of things. However as those of us with service dogs and working dogs know, there isn’t always time for frequent potty breaks and messy clean ups.
Service dogs must perform regardless of outside stress, and of course, if you’re training your own service dog, intentionally putting he or she into stressful situation is part of the job.
Luckily there are a few thing you can do. First identify, if possible, the situations that cause your canine enough stress or excitement to cause an upset stomach. Then take a proactive approach.
For example, if you’re going to the airport and you know this is a place of stress or excitement as it was for one of my dogs, start with a special breakfast. What I offered my excitable boy was mashed sweet potatoes and a chaser of probiotics.
Sweet potatoes are a natural stool hardener and probiotics just boost the natural digestion. A change in diet will almost always result in loose stools, however if you get caught without your dog’s normal food there are two things you can do to make the switch as painless as possible.
First, make sure whatever food you pick, that a substitute has the same protein source (e.g. chicken, lamb, etc.) Next, pick up the substitute food at a farm/feed store so you can pick up a tube of probiotics to go with the new food. (the more digestive enzymes to help break down that new food the better)
The feed store won’t have probiotics labeled for dogs but the goat or horse probiotics work just as well. As a matter of fact, the cattle industry has been using probiotics much longer than dogs or even people.
Because we don’t always know when these events are going to happen, we find ourselves in a reactive situation. In this event you have a few options. If you can remove your canine from the situation and return home, it’s best to feed a bland diet of cooked rice and canned pumpkin (fiber in the pumpkin helps absorb extra fluid). Low fat yogurt or cottage cheese can also ease a troubled stomach.
If you need a quick fix, Pepto Bismol works great for me. Pepto is not made for dogs and over use can be harmful so I only use it if I NEED it. I use a dose of 2.5cc (1/2 tsp) per 10 pounds of body weight. For example, my 60 lb dog gets 15cc (3 tsp) dose as needed or to the desired effect. Pepto is sometimes the only fix for those days your dog simply must perform.
Think PAWSITIVE!
