Puppies with soft or runny stools

[MaryP]

Just a little background for anyone who hadn't read any of my previous posts: I have a litter of five 6-week old puppies that arrived two weeks ago today. One puppy, the smallest one, was very sick from the beginning due to having developed an intussusception, and despite our best efforts, she had to be euthanized last week.

 

Anyway, ever since they arrived, they have had poop that varied from normal, to soft serve, to runny, and even a couple of watery ones. They had been wormed at the shelter and I took in fecal samples after they arrived, which were negative for parasites. When the one puppy had watery diarrhea one morning, I decided that it was time for them all to go back to the vet. So, we took them in last Monday. They were all checked out and individual fecals were performed on each puppy. The vet thought that they might possibly have coccidia, but he didn't find any evidence in the fecals. One puppy (the one that had the watery diarrhea) did have one ascarid worm in her sample, but everyone else was clean. So, the vet wormed them all again and I am supposed to worm them again in 2 weeks. He also found some carrot cell walls in her poop, which he thought may be contributing to the diarrhea. Since chronic diarrhea can be one of the causes of an intussusception, he felt it was important to settle their guts down and trying to firm up their stools.

 

So, he recommended that we feed them some prescription Hills (r/d, I think) to firm up their stools. He told us that it's a food that they usually prescribed to overweight dogs to help them loose weight. I wasn't thrilled about feeding the Hills, but I felt it was more important to firm up their stools, so we did. It worked. After a couple of feedings, they all had firm poops. But, they were also eating twice as much and pooping up a storm. I'm sure it's because of the fillers in the r/d. I wasn't really comfortable keeping them on the r/d because I didn't think puppies needed to be on food that was formulated for overweight dogs. So, we started mixing in regular puppy food and slowly phasing out the r/d. As we did this, their stools became looser again. Yesterday, we were feeding only regular puppy food (softened kibble mixed in with some canned puppy food and some occasional green tripe). We also added some yogurt to the food. This morning, they are back to soft serve or runny stools.

 

I really don't want to go back to feeding them the r/d, but I also don't want them to continue to have such soft or runny stools. Can anyone suggest something that I can add to their food to help firm up their stools? We are planning to add in some canned pumpkin, but I forgot to pick some up from the store yesterday.

[Journey]

Mary, have you tried not feeding the canned puppy food? If you have tripe in with the kibble they are getting some softer food with that.

 

Karen

[MaryP]

Mary, have you tried not feeding the canned puppy food?

 

Not yet. I can try that.

[MaggieDog]

Perhaps the puppy food is too rich? If they were on a crappy diet before they came into rescue, it's a possibility - my current foster was on pedigree for 2 months prior to coming into my house and it took a good 3-4 weeks for his poops to completely normalize on the high quality foods I feed. Perhaps try an all life stages food with limited ingredients like CA Natural, Canidae, etc..

[MaryP]

Perhaps the puppy food is too rich?

 

This was a thought that crossed my mind, too. We were feeding them canned Innova puppy food with softened adult Innova kibble. I thought that perhaps the canned Innova puppy food was too rich, so I switched to Nutro puppy food. Perhaps I just need to phase out the puppy food completely(?).

[Journey]

Yep I would get rid of the canned, soften the kibble with warm water and you already have the tripe in it. However, what kind of tripe are you feeding? Raw or canned?

[MaryP]

However, what kind of tripe are you feeding? Raw or canned?

 

Canned.

[Journey]

I was told the canned is good - Tripett brand, most likely isn't as rich as the raw. No other help really maybe another member will jump in soon.

[Lenajo]

Innova is notorious for causing diarrhea, period. The canned is awful stuff in particular. I'd feed it to some adult dog that could tolerate it and change the pups over to something simpler.

 

If you don't want to feed raw that's ok, but I suggest a straight forward puppy food like purina ONE or ProPlan. You can also use ONE adult. Not the P. Chow - that's just powdered milk coated over diarrhea fiber bombs.

 

For now, I would mix some simple boiled drained hamburger with a couple of spoons of plain yogurt, plus a few spoons of canned pumpkin. Put just enough water over this to make it one mass of food when stirred. Once they settle down you can add back the Tripett - which is great stuff. Feed them half of what they would normally eat in a meal once, wait a few hours, then again.

 

These guys have had a ton of medication, wormer....their gut flora is way off, and the Innova is not helping. Regardless of how you do this it will take time for them to settle down. I would expect to see a little improvement post the first meal of the above, then progressing ot normal by the third.

 

I'm sorry the pup died, but it didn't sound like he was right from the beginning. Try to let that go and just look at this as healthy puppies that are not agreeing with your choice of food. It will take a lot of the stress off you and them both.

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I would just start eliminating things from what you are feeding. It does sound like it's the food. I would just try giving them the kibble softened with warm water and see what happens.

Hopefully you get it figured out!

[Debbie Meier]

What protein and fat levels are in the foods you are feeding? Is it possible they are getting to much and that their systems can't handle that much volume? I had a habit of overfeeding my puppies and ended up with a heck of a time with them, once I figured out that they did not need as much as they could take as often as they needed, things started to settle down.

 

Another thing I have noticed, wormer sometimes will firm them up so it may not have been the Hills.

 

Also, with kibble I wet it for them rather then using wet food, sometimes warm water works well to soften, if not wet it and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds (depending on you microwave), then allow it to cool or ad more cold water.

 

I'm trying to decided now what to do with my little crew, kibble or can they go on to raw if I grind it? Luckily I still have a few weeks to figure it out.

 

ETA:I cross posted with Lenajo, I think the advice is dead on.

[MaryP]

I also wonder, especially after reading Debbie's post, if I'm not overfeeding them and this is contributing to the problem. I just figured that they should be allowed to eat as much as they want to, but when they are done, they often look as if they might just pop!

 

We had been feeding raw hamburger with tripe and goats milk and a little bit of canned. But, when the one puppy was so sick, my bf got nervous about feeding the raw hamburger (he thought they would have trouble digesting it) and we stopped giving them that.

 

I like Lenajo's suggestion about the hamburger, yogurt, and pumpkin. I think that is what I will try next.

[Lenajo]

If the goats milk is pasturized it will cause diarrhea too sometimes. Raw milk usually helps.

 

It *might* be possible to overfed sick puppies (wormy pups feel starved because they are malnourished and low on protein) but I've not ever had that problem with healthy ones.

 

Do you know how to make yogurt? I'd turn that goat milk in yogurt and use it that way.

 

Since these pups were so wormy, as soon as they settled I would start adding the watery juice from raw liver, then bits of minced raw liver (organic if you can get it, or at least healthy raised locally) to the food. We've had great luck using that from the start in a homemade mix for orphaned kittens and pups.

[MaryP]

If the goats milk is pasturized it will cause diarrhea too sometimes.

 

We haven't been giving them the goat's milk for about a week or so.

 

Do you know how to make yogurt? I'd turn that goat milk in yogurt and use it that way.

 

I'm about the least talented person in the kitchen you can find. So, no, I wouldn't have a clue about how to make yogurt.

 

Since these pups were so wormy, as soon as they settled I would start adding the watery juice from raw liver, then bits of minced raw liver (organic if you can get it, or at least healthy raised locally) to the food. We've had great luck using that from the start in a homemade mix for orphaned kittens and pups.

 

I don't know that they were ever really wormy. The shelter wormed them just as a precaution. When I had my vet check a composite fecal the day after they arrived, it was negative. A week later, my vet wormed them because one puppy had a worm in her stool when they did individual fecals on all the puppies, and he thought it would be a good idea to just worm them all.

[Lenajo]

In this climate they were exposed to dirt enough to get coccidia they had worms, and likely lots of them. Fecals are rarely right because the worms have to be in that part of the colon, that time of day, that part of the lifecycle of the parasite etc. I've had...maybe 3 pups in 30 years that showed worms in the fecal and they were near death. Other pups were equally sick yet showed negative. Those pups responded so well to deworming we threatened to report it as a miracle

 

regardless, you've dewormed them, and if diet doesn't settle this down (I think it will) then I would be looking at a panacure treatment for whipworms.

[Lenajo]

I'm about the least talented person in the kitchen you can find. So, no, I wouldn't have a clue about how to make yogurt.

 

Just buy it

[Debbie Meier]

I think if they were mine I would just be deworming them every 2 weeks to get the life cycle broken beginning with a three day panacur routine. We deworm our pups beginning on the 3rd week, then 5th, 7th and 9th. How often are you disinfecting their play area, dishes and toys? Many times people miss that step which can cause lots of problems, things that older dogs have and have no issues with will play havoc on pups that are foreign to the environment especially when compromised.

[MaryP]

How often are you disinfecting their play area, dishes and toys?

 

At least three times a day, their two pens are completely disinfected. Their dishes are washed after every feeding. I probably need to change out the toys and bedding more often, though. I usually only change those once a day.

[Lenajo]

Do they have a litter pan? They are old enough they should not be dirtying the play and sleeping area.

 

Poop from a sick puppy should not hit the floor long enough to warm it up.

[MaryP]

Do they have a litter pan? They are old enough they should not be dirtying the play and sleeping area.

 

Poop from a sick puppy should not hit the floor long enough to warm it up.

 

I put out newspapers for them. I was trying to reduce the area of newspapers to get them in the habit of going to the newspaper area to potty. But, that hasn't worked too well. First of all, after they eat, they tear around the pen like maniacs scattering the newspapers everywhere. And recently, they have decided that it is much more fun to shred the newspapers. Sometimes they go to the newspapers to potty and other times they just go wherever they happen to be at the time. They don't, however, soil their bedding in their kennel.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Sounds an awful lot like coccidia. My vet said they were seeing a lot of resistant (Albon) strains that were hard to catch in fecals. If you keep having issues on the bland diet, you might bring multiple samples to see whether they can catch something, or just ask for the treatment (yes, more meds, poor puppies!). Even the Albon resistant strains will improve somewhat on the meds, at least at first, because there's actually a range of resistance.

 

These strains emerge in "clean" environments like shelters, kennels, and even vet clinics, where the bugs are underexposed to treatments. Ironically, treatment with a med that the bug responds to, should be followed by a good roll in the dirt to expose them to med susceptible bugs.

 

A probiotic is definitely vital. I use a concentrated human grade product, mostly because it's more cost effective than yogurt, but also because I prefer not to expose them to bovine dairy while under stress.

[Lenajo]

you can use pee pads if that works for you - tape them to the floor or put them in one of those frames. We attach a plastic pool to the whelping box at 4 weeks. The pan is filled with wood shavings (aspen is my preference) and the pups quickly learn to go away from the bed to potty. Gradually we move the shaving pool further away from the whelping box until they've got a large play area, plus a sleeping area, with the shavings to potty in at the far end.

 

There will always be some mess with puppies, and we have shavings all over some days. But by in large they get the poop put where it's supposed too, and the cleaner they are in that regard, the easier it is to keep them healthy.

[MaryP]

Thanks everyone for all the great suggestions. I would have never thought of a lot of this stuff on my own. I've never raised puppies this young before, so this is definitely a learning experience for me. But, they sure are an entertaining little group.