Firm Up Your Dog's Stool

Soft stools are a common problem with dogs. Many cases of soft stool are not serious and clear up quickly. However, if your dog is having trouble forming a solid stool, you may need to give them a little extra help. By being mindful of what you feed your dog, and making sure that its environment is stress-free, you can help your dog firm up their stool.

Steps

Learning About Your Dog's Digestion

1. Understand the difference between diarrhea and soft stool. There is a subtle difference between diarrhea and soft stools. A soft stool is bulky but formed, and you should be able to pick it up for poop disposal. Diarrhea contains much more fluid and is usually liquid, with no form, and impossible to pick up. Diarrhea is usually an indicator of ill health or that the dog is trying to eject potential toxins from rancid food from their gut. Soft stools, on the other hand, are usually not the result of infection or disease, but are a result of an inappropriate or poor quality diet, lack of fiber, or feeding food to which the dog is intolerant.
2. Understand what to do if your dog has diarrhea. Dogs with diarrhea need to be carefully monitored, with the owner following the dog outside to observe the nature of the tummy upset. If there is blood present, the diarrhea is very watery, or the dog seems unwell — then a veterinary check up is strongly advised.
   • If the dog is otherwise well but has diarrhea, then don't feed them for 24 hours, but make sure plenty of fresh water is available. After a day's starvation, introduce a bland diet such as cooked chicken and boiled white rice (one third chicken, two thirds rice) and feed this for two to three days until the stools firm up. See How to Prepare Chicken and Rice for your Dog for more information.
   • Any dog that has diarrhea for more that two days should see their veterinarian.
3. Understand the dietary needs of dogs. If your dog has soft stool you will want to improve their stool quality to make poop patrol more bearable and to make sure your dog is in optimal health. Dogs need a diet composed of digestible proteins and digestible fiber in order to be healthy and to have normal bowel movements.
   • Meat-based diets are best for dogs. Dogs can eat a vegetarian or a meat-based diet. However, they do require high protein levels, and in a vegetarian diet this means providing beans and pulses. These have a tendency to cause flatulence and a soft stool. So if your dog in on a vegetarian diet, consider a change to a good quality meat-based diet.

Improving Your Dog’s Diet

1. Choose a well-balanced diet. This does not always mean that you need to feed your dog a top-end pet store diet. For instance, the pâté-type diets can be very rich and high in minerals (such as salt) to make them palatable for fussy eaters (in much the same way chocolate cake is more appealing than a bean salad — tasty and healthy don't always match up). Instead, look for a food that lists meat as the main ingredient. It must list actual "meat" and not "meat derivatives," "meat offal," or "meat by-products."
   • Choose white meats (low-fat) such as chicken, turkey, rabbit, or white fish. Look for a low number of ingredients, since the food is likely to contain less processed ingredients and preservatives, and contain ingredients closer to the actual food.
   • Look for the carbohydrate in the form of rice, wheat, oats, or barley, rather than soy or soya products.
   • Although price is no guarantee of quality, expect to pay more for a good quality food than a highly processed, cereal high product simply because you are paying for better quality ingredients.
2. Give your puppy a lactose-free diet. The only milk suitable for dogs is bitch's milk. For young nursing puppies this is available as a milk replacer, Lactol, which is made up with water. If your pup is very young and you have just switched them to a milk replacement diet, you should select a lactose-free replacement if you notice your puppy is passing soft stools. Some puppies are born with a deficiency in an enzyme called lactase. This enzyme breaks down the primary sugar component in milk, which is lactose. In effect, puppies with this deficiency cannot break down lactose into sugars that can be digested and absorbed. Because undigested sugars draw water from the intestine, the puppy then passes soft stools.
3. Switch from wet to dry food. Remember that wet diets (canned or pouched) contain around 75% water, whereas dry diets are around 10% moisture. This higher moisture content translates into wetter, more bulky stools. This will make a big impact on the volume (reduces it) and moisture content (much harder and firmer) of the stool.
   • Take your time to switch a dog over to a new diet. Take at least four to five days, gradually adding the new diet into your dog's existing food and cutting back on the original food. This gives the bowel flora and fauna that aid digestion a chance to adapt.
   • High protein diets, like beef, chicken, and dog foods with high protein content can also soften stools. By-products of protein digestion also draw water from the intestines.
   • Wheat-based dog foods, or foods that are high in wheat content can also cause soft stools.
4. Avoid giving your dog fatty foods. You should also avoid fats that easily become rancid. Do not give fried fast foods to your dog. Usually fried commercial fast foods are fried using palm oil; this oil is hard to digest and can easily turn rancid. Bad fats can form a layer in the intestine, causing your dog to have watery stools.
5. Feed your dog a bland diet if soft stools persist. A bland diet would consist of soft cooked rice and lean ground pork or lamb. Feed your dog this mixture for at least five days and check to see if their stool firms up at all. Keep in mind that most commercially available dog foods that are made for improving stool are rice-based because rice is low in protein and salt, and is a very digestible starch.
   • Dog foods that promote more solid stools include: Hill’s Prescription Diet i/d, Royal Canin Intestinal, Eukanuba, Royal Canin Digestive Low Fat, and Hill's Science Diet.

Trying Other Solutions For Loose Stool

1. Give your dog probiotics. The gut relies on a population of bacteria to aid digestion. If your dog has had a poor diet and soft stools for a while, then the bowel can get an overgrowth of "unhelpful" bacteria, and an imbalance in the natural and desirable bacterial balance in the gut. Supplementing with "helpful" bacteria can help correct this imbalance, improve digestion, and firm up a soft stool. The bacteria needed is called Enterococcus faecium and this is contained in non-prescription probiotic powders called Fortiflora. This is a dog-specific probiotic. It comes in sachets and typically you mix one sachet a day into the dog's food, for about five days.
   • Dogs do not have the same bowel fauna as people, so feeding them human probiotics at best is thought not to be helpful, and at worst, the lactose in the human products could trigger diarrhea.
   • Fortiflora can be purchased without a prescription online or from your veterinarian
   • In general, you should give larger dog breeds at least one small bottle per day for five days, or half a bottle for five days for small breeds.
2. Add fiber to your dog's diet. Some dogs with soft stools benefit from increased fiber in their diet. Fiber helps soak up fluid like a sponge and can help normalize the feces, drying up diarrhea and firming up a soft stool. It also is thought to reduce the risk of colon cancer, and is a bulking agent which helps the dog feel fuller for longer and decrease their calorie intake if overweight.
   • However, you can have too much of a good thing, so on food packaging look for a crude fiber content at or around 10%.
   • You can add fiber to their diet by mixing in oat or wheat bran. Start with around 1 teaspoon per 10 kg of your dog's body weight.
   • Also consider giving raw fruit and vegetables; however, avoid canned vegetables, as they often have high salt levels.
3. Make sure your dog always has fresh water. Dogs with soft stools lose extra water because of the raised fluid content, so it is important for them to have free access to clean drinking water to replace this lost fluid. Wash and clean your dog’s water bowl at least every other day and make sure that he or she always has fresh, clean water.
4. Avoid doing stressful activities daily with your dog. If taking a bath is stressful to your dog, try to delay it for a few days and observe if the stool firms up. In some dogs there is a strong link between stress and digestive disturbances. If this is the case, you need to reduce the stress in order to firm the stool.
   • Stress causes the physiology of the intestines to become more basic (acidic intestines favor the good bacteria), making it harder for your dog to process foods.
   • In these circumstances give the bowel less work to do by putting the dog onto a bland, easy to digest diet such as chicken and white rice.
5. Take your dog to the veterinarian if soft stool persists. While a lot of cases of soft stool can be cleared up simply through changes to diet, it can be a sign of other health problems. If your dog continues to pass soft stools, even after you have tried changing their diet, take them to a vet to get checked out.

Sources and Citations

See also

• Treat Dog Diarrhea
• Treat Dog Diarrhea With Natural Cures
• Treat Dog Constipation
• Treat Diarrhea and Constipation in Dogs and Cats
• Keep a Dog From Throwing Up
• Cure a Dog's Stomach Ache
• Care for a Dog After It Has Just Vomited
• Reduce Flatulence in Dogs