How to Help Hardening Dog Stools

Choose a balanced diet. You don’t necessarily need to feed your dog a scrumptious diet. For example, a diet of canned ground meat is often very fatty and rich in minerals (eg salt), so picky eaters also find it appetizing (more like chocolate cake than bean salad – delicious). and healthy but not always suitable). Therefore, you should look to buy foods that have meat as the main ingredient. The ingredients listed must be “real meat”, not “meat-derived ingredients”, “meat leftovers” or “meat by-products”.

• Choose white meat (low fat) like chicken, rabbit or white fish. Look for low-ingredient foods as they often contain fewer processed ingredients and preservatives, and contain ingredients that closely resemble the real food.
• Look for carbohydrates from rice, wheat, oats or barley instead of carbohydrates from soy or soy products. ^[4]
• Although the price does not guarantee quality, you need to be prepared to pay more for good quality food, because compared to a product that goes through a lot of processing and contains a lot of grains, good quality food is better. Made from higher quality raw materials.

Adopt a lactose-free diet for puppies. The only milk suitable for dogs is mother’s milk. For nursing puppies, you can give Lactp mixed with water to replace milk. If your puppy is very young and has just been switched to a milk replacer diet, you should choose a lactose-free food when you see that your puppy has soft stools. Some puppies have lactase deficiency from birth. This enzyme helps break down the basic sugar in milk, lactose. Therefore, puppies lacking this enzyme cannot break down lactose into sugars that the puppy’s body can digest and absorb. Unabsorbed sugar will draw water from the intestines, so the puppy will have soft stools. ^[5]

Switch from wet food to dry food. Remember that wet food (canned or bagged) is about 75% water, while dry food is only about 10% water. The higher amount of moisture causes the dog to pass wet and more frequent stools. This factor greatly affects the mass (loss of mass) and the amount of water in the stool (harder and firmer stools). ^[6]

• Slowly introduce the new diet to the dog. Allow at least 4-5 days to gradually add new foods to your dog’s diet and cut back on old foods. This gives the gut microbiota that support digestion time to adapt.
• Diets high in protein, such as beef, chicken, and high-protein dog food, can also soften stools. The byproduct of protein digestion also draws water from the intestines.
• Wheat or wheat-based dog foods can also soften stools.

Avoid giving your dog high-fat foods. In addition, you should avoid feeding your dog perishable fats. Do not give your dog fried fast food. Commercial fried fast food is usually fried with palm oil; This oil is indigestible and perishable. Harmful fats can form a layer in the intestines and cause your dog to have loose stools.

Feed your dog a bland diet if soft stools persist. The paleo diet should include soft rice and lean ground pork or lamb. Feed these two foods to your dog for at least 5 days and then check to see if the poop has hardened. You should note that most commercially available dog food used to improve stool condition contains rice because rice is low in protein, low in salt and is a highly digestible starch. ^[7]

• Dog foods that help build harder stools include: Hill’s Prescription Diet i/d, Royal Canin Intestinal, Eukanuba, Royal Canin Digestive Low Fat and Hill’s Science Diet. ^[8]

Probiotic supplement for dogs. The gut relies on beneficial bacteria to aid digestion. If your dog’s diet is poor and the poop has been soft for a while, “unfriendly” bacteria can thrive and cause an imbalance in the natural beneficial bacteria in the gut. Adding “good” bacteria can help restore balance, improve digestion, and help firm stools. The bacteria to supplement is called Enterococcus faecium and is found in the over-the-counter probiotic powder Fortiflora. This is a probiotic specifically for dogs. Products in packaged form; Normally you need to mix in dog food one pack per day for 5 days. ^[9]

• The dog’s gut microbiome is different from that of humans, so giving dogs human probiotics isn’t helpful either. In the worst case scenario, the lactose in human probiotics can cause diarrhea. ^[10]
• You can buy Fortiflora products without a prescription in online stores or from your veterinarian.
• In general, you should give large dogs at least one small bottle per day for 5 days, and small dogs 1/2 bottle for 5 days.

Increase fiber in your dog’s diet. Increasing fiber in the diet may help some dogs with soft stools. Fiber, like a sponge, helps absorb fluids and normalize stools, dries stools caused by diarrhea, and helps soften stools. Fiber also helps reduce the risk of colon cancer and is a filler that keeps dogs fuller for longer and reduces calorie intake if the dog is overweight. ^[11]

• However, adding too much fiber is also not good, so you should read the packaging carefully to find foods with a crude fiber content of about 10%. ^[12]
• You can increase fiber in your dog’s diet by mixing it with oat bran or wheat bran. Start adding about 1 teaspoon per 10 kg of your dog’s body weight.
• In addition, you should consider feeding your dog fresh vegetables; However, avoid canned vegetables because these foods are often high in salt.

Make sure your dog has clean water at all times. Dogs with soft stools will lose more water because of the increased amount of liquid in the stool, so you need to make sure your dog can comfortably drink clean water to make up for the lost water. Wash and sanitize your dog’s drinking bowl at least every two days, and make sure there is always clean, cool water available to the dog.

Avoid daily stressful activities for dogs. If your dog is stressed about bathing, you should postpone the bath for a few days and watch to see if the poop hardens. In some dogs, stress is strongly associated with gastrointestinal disturbances. In that case, you need to de-stress your dog to help the poop harden.

• Stress makes the physiological function of the intestinal tract more alkaline (the gut is acidic, which is good for beneficial bacteria), making it difficult for a dog’s intestines to process food. ^[13]
• In this case, you should help reduce the frequency of your dog’s bowel movements by feeding him light, easy-to-digest foods like chicken and white rice.