I checked out some of the past posts on runny poop, now I have only a question or two left:

(Pup is 12 week old GSD and runny poop started yesterday, Monday morning.)

1) If the poop is very soft, running into almost liquid and back to pudding, I am better off fasting or feeding chicken rice water than giving kibble (Nutro large breed puppy), is that correct?

Pup messed his crate of course over night. The stuff I cleaned up smelled like fish! I saw a reference to that on another thread, but no one had a theory. I do not feed fish oil.

No messy poops in the last four hours and the last one was a touch better.

2) For causes, aside from parasites which I will have checked if this keeps up. We have a worming and shots due soon, anyway--

He ate a bunch of cat poop two days ago before I could stop him and more after that, I think.

He ate his first Wal*Mart greenie the same day, chowed it right down.

I started spending more time on clicker training and thus feeding more of the soft treats, which I have suspected for slightly soft stools at the end of a good dump before.

So, several diet changes in a few days.

Has anyone ever had greenies or raw hide give a pup a serious case of the runs? I guess that even disregarding parasites, cat poop and cat food will do it?

Ideas, suggestions?

Helen

Cat food will definitely do it, it is very rich.

If his stools are soft it is a good idea to do small meals of overcooked white rice until the stool firms up and then adding some boiled chicken to it for a few more meals. Don't rush the switch back to kibble, it is better to take it slow and not cause her gut to flair back up.


Also watery and/or bloody stools are an emergency in a young pup and calls for a vet visit ASAP.

 Quote: Jennifer Lee

Cat food will definitely do it, it is very rich.

If his stools are soft it is a good idea to do small meals of overcooked white rice until the stool firms up and then adding some boiled chicken to it for a few more meals. Don't rush the switch back to kibble, it is better to take it slow and not cause her gut to flair back up.


Also watery and/or bloody stools are an emergency in a young pup and calls for a vet visit ASAP.

DITTO.

And yes, those Greenies that are still made of gluten do indeed trigger bad diarrhea in some animals (along with obstruction in some). I would skip those forever.

Greenies and rawhides are two toys that will NEVER and I repeat N*E*V*E*R enter my home. They are two very dangerous toys. Also, Nutro is not the best quality food for your puppy.

However, if he was eating the Nutro before and his poop was fine, that's probably not the cause. Nutritionally, Greenies contain wheat, soy, gelatin and glycerin and your puppy could be reacting to any of them; not to mention the chemical cocktail that rawhide toys are soaked in during curing.

How often do you feed him? At 3 months he should just be transitioning from 4 meals per day to 3.

So: try giving him a smaller meal at next mealtime to let his digestive system rest, cut out the greenies and rawhides, and any other commercial treat products and see if his next poop is better. If not, we can tell you how to make a bland diet to help his bowels recover.

DITTO to the greenies. Also I would not feed rawhide to dogs! They OFTEN cause OBSTRUCTIONS! Very dangerous. They do not disolve in the gut & very often don't pass thru. I gave one 1x to my GSD pup at about 12 weeks old & ended up reaching way down her throat to pull it out. It had lodged in her throat & she couldn't get it up or down. She was gasping for breath. Glad it didn't go down 'cause it was too large for her to have passed & I may have lost her. That was it, never again. My vet at the time was less then 1000ft away from my home & she would never had made it there alive.

Just want to add that "real" Greenies, while they are nothing I want to buy, some time ago changed their formula to gelatin as the first ingredient (very soluble) instead of gluten because of the obstruction problem. I took one home from the vet and watched it dissolve in regular warm water (not stomach acid) and agreed with her that she could carry them without fear of the previous problems. (I think she knew that I was telling waiting room folks "OMG! Don't buy that!" about the old ones. She also points out to me that the foods she carries now have meat as the first ingredients, etc.)

Again, it's not a product I particularly want to support -- I just want to point out that all of the Greenies knock-offs I have seen still make the dangerous gluten formula. Dogs WILL swallow that last big chunk, even aside from all the other gluten problems.

Thanks all. From here on out, I go with my hunches, which said all along "avoid greenies and rawhide." Guess I'll ditch the chewies thingies I just bought. I am fairly certain it was the greenie knockoff that started the runs.

Yes, the breeder was feeding Nutro so I just kept with it and it has given great stools, except when the pup got a bunch of cat food--we had the runs for days.

What I am seeing now, after feeding the overcooked rice and chicken broth for a day (made from scratch) is some lumpy stool with a lot of soft pudding stuff with it and no "go outside" in a panic (his, not mine) every forty minutes.

AND much more urine, which is clear, and thinner than yesterday's. I believe this indicated that the pup is getting a lot more liquid in from the mostly liquid diet and the water is being drawn out of the intestines like it should and not going straight through as much.

And I mean a lot of pee--he peed in his crate a little after telling me he wanted out, peed a lot when he went out and after the next mostly liquid meal, peed on the kitchen floor. Usually, I don't get any accidents at all in the house or in the crate. He is contained in the kitchen where I can watch him if he is free. Guess I missed his "go out" cue.

Time to take Otis out again, I can hear him stir in the crate. This is tiresome and a solid diet again will be vary nice.

H

By the way, Otis is bright eyed and got pretty rambunctious when it cooled off. Nipping and chasing anything that moves, so I am not terribly concerned about anything serious, although blockage is always a worry.

thanks again

I'm glad he seems to be feeling better. I would stay with the rice and broth and maybe a little bit of boiled skinless chicken added in until his poops are solid and normal and then slowly add the nutro back in.

I would imagine that he is in fact urinating a lot because of all the liquid in the food, but if it keeps up it could be a sign of a UTI which is easy to diagnose and treat. It probably isn't but it is something to keep in the back of your mind!

I have Giardia on the brain, so I thought I'd throw this in. If this continues, and you cannot determine a cause, try doing a fecal smear to look for Giardia. More often than not, it will come out negative, but it's still possible it is in there causing problems. This bug can be blamed for many mystery cases of intermittent diarrhea. It's easy to treat, fortunately, once determined.