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Every now and then, your dog might consume something that doesn't agree with its system, or catches some nasty bug, and there comes the nightmare - diarrhea! Most of the time, diarrhea passes quite quickly within a day, but sometimes it may be more persistent and requires your intervention. And for some dogs, diarrhoea could be quite a regular situation unfortunately.
How do you know if your dog has diarrhoea? If the stool is soft to watery, simply cannot be picked up easily without leaving residue, or his defecate frequency drastically increases, these are all sure signs of diarrhea. In this post, we will share the top tips on how to stop your dog's diarrhea at home.
When you should contact your vet
Before we look at how to treat dog diarrhoea at home, let's look at some red flags that call for a visit to the vet:
You suspect your dog has ingested chemicals, poison or any toxins, and that include human foods that your dog should never eat since its poisonous to them e.g. grapes, chocolate, raisins.
You see blood in the stool. If the blood is darker color, sometimes it's in the form of black-coloured stool, it indicates bleeding in the upper part of the digestive tract. If the blood is fresh in color, it usually indicates bleeding in the colon or anus. If only small spots of fresh blood found in the stool it could be normal since diarrhoea irritates the colon or anus, which could lead to small amount of bleeding. Otherwise, the bleeding warrants immediate attention.
You suspect that you dog has ingested foreign bodies e.g. toys, clothes, stuffings in toys, big chunks of splintered bones.
Your dog is refusing food and or water.
Your dog is vomiting.
Your dog seems to be very distressed, weak or lethargic.
It's painful for your dog when his abdominal area is touched, or the stomach looks bloated. Your dog may show discomfort by trying to get away from being touched or squealing.
Your dog is straining to defecate but not much is coming out, this could be a sign of intestinal blockage due to foreign bodies, which is a very serious medical emergency.
You see worms or white spots in the stool, which could be a case of intestinal worms.
The diarrhoea hasn't improved after 2 days with home remedies.
If your dog has any of the above signs, schedule a vet visit!
Home Remedies to Stop Dogs' Diarrhea
Once you've rule out medical emergency, you could try several home remedies if you think your dog simply has a mild case of diarrhea and otherwise behaving normally. The remedies are meant to stop the diarrhoea within 1-3 days. If you see no improvement over the course of 2 days or the condition worsens, please take your dog for a vet visit.
1. Fasting
Fasting your dog for 24 hours is an effective way to stop the diarrhea as this allows all the diarrhea to pass and for the gut to recover. Make sure you're providing plenty of water (but not excessive in one go) to your dog since diarrhea tends to dehydrate the body.
If your dog doesn't like drinking water on its own, you can add a little bit of greek yoghurt (most dogs are lactose intolerance, greek yoghurt is a better choice of yoghurt due to its low lactose content), canned pure pumpkin or rice to the water to make it more appealing.
2. Bland Diet
After the fast, slowly introduce food by giving your dog a bland diet. Bland diet consists of a single source of lean protein e.g. boiled ground turkey, boiled lean beef, boiled chicken breast. And a single source of carbs, popular choice include steamed white rice or yellow sweet potato as they are easy to digest, and sweet potato has the added benefit of providing extra soluble fibre to slow down digestion, and help the gut absorbs excess water.
The lean meat to rice ratio should be around 1:2. The bland diet is meant to be easily digestible and low in fat, feed this for about 2-3 days.
For extra precaution, slowly transition your dog back to its regular diet by giving him 50% bland diet and 50% regular diet or (75% : 25%) and gradually increase the regular diet and phase out the bland diet over the course of 7 days. If tolerated, you may shorten the transition period.
2. Canned Pumpkin
Apart from just feeding the bland diet, you could consider adding 100% pure pumpkin puree with no added sugar into your dog's meal as topper.
Pumpkin puree is high in soluble fibre, which helps maintain gut health, slow down digestion and absorb excess water in the gut as we just discussed. Many soluble fibers, including those soluble fibers found in sweet potato, are prebiotics. Prebiotics are basically foods for probiotics, which are the good bacterias in our dogs' gut that are essential to having good digestion and overall health.
Here are some some of my canned pumpkin puree go-to options:
3. Kaolin and Pectin - Anti-Diarrhea Supplement
To have an additional aid to speed up the recover, I recommend using anit-diarrhea supplement / liquids that contain Kaolin and Pectin. Kaolin is a type of mineral that acts as an absorptive agent, which helps absorb excess water and toxins, which in turn helps firm up the stool. Pectin on the other hand is a source of slobber fibre again that helps sooth your dog's gut and support its health.
Follow the feeding instructions on the product label, usually this should take effect between 1-2 days. My common choices are:
Food Intolerance
If the moment you start feeding your dog a bland diet and soon after it starts doing diarrhoea again, there is a chance that your dog has food intolerance for the protein that he's eating. We tend to give our dog the protein that they're used to for the bland diet and that's a good thing.
Yet sometimes the root cause of the diarrhoea is actually caused by the dog having developed intolerance to their usual protein, which could well explain why you see no improvement despite fasting and bland diet!
And you may ask, why does my dog suddenly become intolerant?
In fact, food intolerance takes a long while up to 3-6 months to be discovered, if you dog has been consistently consuming the same source of protein for the last couple months, then that could be it. In this case, you could try experiment with another protein source for the bland diet and switch your dog's regular food to the new protein source during the transition period. Because of food intolerance, you see there are a huge variety of novel protein source of dog food in the market e.g. venison, duck, turkey, whitefish, kangaroo, rabbit.
Many dogs have food intolerance and the top protein sources that are not tolerated well includes chicken, pork, beef. That's because they are commonly found in dog food, treats and even supplement flavouring. This may seem like a bad news since what this possibly entails is that we need to keep searching for a protein source that the dog won't develop an intolerance for while each experimental period could last up to 6 months!
But feeding your dog doesn't have to be painful and certainly doesn't have to be about finding the one perfect dog food. Many dog parents have turned to Rotational Feeding for the very reason of preventing the development of food intolerance, because intolerance develops under the constant exposure to the same source of protein, thus the body simply becomes intolerant to the accumulation of what's broken down from the digestion of that protein.
Rotational feeding can simply be implemented by switching around your dog's food on a regular basis, it could be weekly, monthly, or every 3 months. It's recommended to switch it up at least every 3 months before any intolerance is developed. Your dog's meals can compose of fresh ingredients (boiled meat, veg, fresh fruits), freeze/air-dried animal organs and meat, wet food and kibbles, switch them around or combine them differently to create variety for a balanced diet!
Fortunately most of the cases of diarrhea should be pass quickly. If your dog has regular episodes of diarrhea, the best strategy is to address the fundamental digestive health, whether that'd be changing the feeding approach to rotational feeding or supplementing your dog's diets with food toppers, probiotics etc. If in doubt, always seek for veterinarian’s advice.
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