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Dr. Lera Clone explains why dogs get sudden diarrhea and what to do about it. Diet changes and new foods are common culprits. Try a bland diet with white rice and lean meat, or ask your vet about metronidazole and probiotics.
Dr. Lera Clone explains why dogs get sudden diarrhea and what to do about it. Diet changes and new foods are common culprits. Try a bland diet with white rice and lean meat, or ask your vet about metronidazole and probiotics.
Hey guys, My name is Dr. Lara here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. Today here we're with Maggie. Maggie is a 2 year old female goldendoodle. And so Maggie's coming in because she's having a lot of diarrhea. And so one of the things, one of the most common reasons for dogs to have soft stool or diarrhea is a switch in their diet. And so that can range anywhere from a completely different brand of food to a new treat, to even opening a new bag of food of the same exact brand and flavor. If you notice that your dog is acting weird, having some sort of soft stool or diarrhea or vomiting, you want to look back within the last five to seven days to see if there have been any changes. The other thing that you want to take into consideration is has there been anyone over your house recently? Because maybe they slip something to your dog, not knowing that it could potentially cause an upset stomach? And so those are the most common things that you'll want to take into consideration if they're on heartworm preventative. Just in case you didn't know, heartworm preventative prevents worms that go in their intestines. And so that's one thing that your vet will typically ask, you know, when they're having some sort of soft stool is, are you current on heartworm prevention? If you're not, then you know, it's a potential red flag for, hey, we gotta check for worms, which is really easy. Once the stool is formed, if the stool is pure liquid, you're not going to be able to go ahead and get any sort of sample because it's just going to come right out, it's going to be hard to catch the thing. My top picks for treatment would typically be something called metronidazole. It's commonly used in veterinary medicine as well as human medicine. When patients are having soft stool or diarrhea, I typically do a combination of some sort of probiotic capsules and the paste. And then I will also usually use something called sucralfate, that's a tablet which is usually dissolved in water over about 15 to 20 minutes and then administered by mouth. That combination will usually go ahead and get the stool result very, very quickly. Caveat, that one that's dissolved in water, it tastes like chalk. So it may be kind of hard to give. So if you guys have any questions about some of the most common treatments, some stuff that you can try at home, bland diets, white rice. White rice is better than brown rice for GI because it's de hulled and so it's easier to digest. And then anything that's very lightly seasoned or not seasoned at all, preferably ground turkey, ground beef, lean ground chicken. Those are some different things that you can try. Canned pumpkin is something else that will go ahead and sometimes firm up the stool. So if you guys have any other questions about this particular topic or any other topics, please leave them in the comments box. If you found this video helpful, please share it with somebody who you think might need it. Subscribe and give us a thumbs up. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
