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If your dog has diarrhea and seems to be reasonably
strong, happy and active, simply follow these guidelines:
- Cut the amount of food you are feeding in half
- Feed home cooked bland diets; they are vastly superior
to the commercial bland diets promoted by many veterinarians
- Bland foods include:
- 1/3 meat
- Cooked meats that are very low in fat such as chicken
(you can also boil hamburger, which will remove all the fat)
- 2/3 rice or other bland grain
- Cottage Cheese
- White Rice (some will do better on cooked oatmeal)
- Do not add any oils or fats to the diet at this point
- To the Bland Food, add:
- Yogurt 1-3 tablespoons per meal (yogurt is soothing but does
not really provide any significant beneficial bacteria.... see our information about Lactobacillus sporogenes)
- Provide a probiotic. We recommend Lactobacillus Sporgenes,
click here to order
- Boiled Sweet Potato: 2-4 tablespoons
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Consider
giving Gastriplex if your dog has repeated bouts (click here
to order Gastriplex)
- Keep feeding this bland diet for at least a couple days
after the diarrhea clears up.
When should you take your dog to the veterinarian? If your dog seems to:
- Act very sick
- Be lethargic
- Show bloating or abdominal pain
- Be feverish (Rectal temperatures above 103.5 degrees F)
- Be dehydrated (one way to try to decide if a dog is dehydrated is to feel
his or her gums... if they feel dry or tacky, there may be dehydration present)
- Have persistent vomiting
- Be passing large amounts of blood in the stool
Chronic Diarrhea
Chronic diarrhea means:
- Diarrhea, with one or more of these symptoms:
- Watery stools
- Soft-Formed Stools
- Mucus coated stools
- Blood coated stools
- A normal stool followed by a soft stool
- The diarrhea could be continual
- The diarrhea can also be off and on, with some good days followed by some
bad days
- Your dog might act sick during the worst bouts of diarrhea, while other
dogs might act normal the whole time
- As the problem continues, dogs can loose weight, develop a rough coat, become
lethargic, or lack the zest for life they used to have
Long-standing diarrhea can become a severely debilitating disorder. Over
time, the body loses valuable nutrients (maldigestion), becomes depleted of immune system functions, and becomes toxic (25%
of the body's detoxification mechanism resides in the intestinal lining). This cycle of events damages the body's ability
to repair itself. Secondary disorders often develop which worsen the prognosis. Because of the chronic damage to the rest
of the body, there are not enough immune function and metabolic products to heal the intestines. Thus we have a cycle of deterioration
that can be very hard to reverse.
Conventional medicine often fails to heal chronic diarrhea. Its approach
tends to follow along a couple lines. First, the dog is fed foods that are extremely bland and easy to digest, often called
"hypoallergenic diets".
Dogs with healthy digestive systems should be able to eat a large variety
of foods, including raw foods, without developing diarrhea. Dogs that need to eat special foods to keep from having diarrhea
are not healthy. Don't ignore the symptoms by feeding hypoallergenic or bland diets. Find out what the problem is and fix
it. Our Phone Consult service can help.
This may help for
a short time, but the body needs complex nutrients for optimal health - nutrients that are destroyed by the extreme processing
employed in making commercial diets.
Secondly, conventional veterinary medicine relies on multiple courses of
antibiotics, often combined with immune suppressive drugs (corticosteroids, for example). Unfortunately, many cases are only
palliated, not cured, and over time the dog will worsen. This is an excellent example where holistic therapies can help cure
your dog.
The causes of chronic diarrhea include:
- Leaky Gut Syndrome
- Intestinal parasites, especially whipworms (tapeworms
are usually harmless) and more rarely roundworms and coccidia.
- Giardia, Clostridium, bacteria (these are usually secondary
infections, see also Paraguard for treatment of Giardia)
- Food Allergies (this is usually secondary to the Leaky
Gut Syndrome)
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Chronic digestion of foods and indigestible objects
such as rocks and sticks
- Organic diseases such as liver disease, thyroid disease
and kidney disease
- Dysbiosis (a relatively permanent alteration from a
normal intestinal microbial flora to an abnormal bacterial, fungal or protozoal population)
As you can see, there are many problems that need to be addressed to heal
these patients. Our guidelines can help many patients, but severe cases need a knowledgeable holistic doctor. For phone consults,
click here
Products To Aid In Healing Dogs With Chronic Diarrhea
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