Am a new dog owner and have a question about poo picking!

[Notalone]

I am a volunteer dog walker for my local rescue home but of course the inevitable happenned and we fell in love with one of the dogs so we are now the proud owner of a rescue collie x. So far everything is fab bur he is very fussy with his food and won't touch complete dry food without having a can of dog food mixed in with it. However this is sometimes making his poo the consistency of custard and it is horrible to collect. He usually goes in our garden but today he left the biggest pile on the pavement I have ever seen and I only had 2 bags so needless to say today was messy and horrible.

So my question is until we find food that suits him, how do I poo pick. I know it seems like such an obvious question but the usual hand in poo bag and pick up just isn't working and I am reluctant to buy a poo shovel unless I really have to because my PIL have one and it is the most horrible thing ever.

We have never had a problem with CSJ - the lady there Ceri gives great advice if you call/email her - they ahve a range of foods for all sorts of dogs and champ is the basic one - working dogs tend to be on the more expensive ones - it was actually recommended to us by our vet as an alternative to james wellbeloved (when they changed it and it upset their tummies!) - if anything they are much much calmer on the CSJ than any of the other foods - our collie is pretty anxious/highly strung and he is much more relaxed on csj - fab stuff

It could be that he is just having too much food.
If you can't get him off this diet mix in some bran to bind up the squits!

No, not bran. Will make it worse!

Really?
I did this for my dog, after reccomended by breader, it worked

Notalone - I could be a little late to the thread here, but I can give you a suggestion which sounds ridiculous to most - as it did me when it was first suggested to me.

Firstly, I will tell you about the incident where my dog backed up to one of those yellow hydrant signs (at dog-bum level) and sprayed it brown. He did this for most of his adult life until a couple of years ago when a new vet suggested he was allergic to chicken.

I had had 8 years of mostly smearing my dogs poo around the pavement with my hand inside a bag, chucking soil over the residue so some poor unfortunate didn't step in it.

I changed my dogs diet to a mix of lamb and rice Burns mixed with lamb and rice Naturediet (I only use a 5th of a pack twice a day so it is expensive but works out ok in these doses - I need to use wet food for medication btw - but if you were to go down this route you would need to (obviously!) pro-rata the daily rations between the two foods to ensure you weren't overfeeding proteins.

Dog poo now so solid (usually!) that I could pick it up with a tissue. (Needless to say I don't, but theoretically... )

I recommended tis recently and removing chicken sorted out a runny poo prob

Bran will add bulk - good for making them feel full and emptying anal glands, but if this dog's got a sensitive tummy he needs to be on a simple complete food, ime, especially as the OP seems to be complaining about the volume as well as the consistency

I'd go down the strict rations/pick up bowl after 15 mins if not eaten route first, then simple complete food before I added anything else in.

May also be worth popping a poo sample in to the vet as there are some parasites/infections which can cause this and which normal worming would not treat.

Best of luck.

Try live yogurt with honey (for the dog, not you)

I cannot explain why I opened this thread, I can only promise that it will be lurking in my nightmares tonight.

Had dogs all my life and I'm 48 so I'm quite used to the poo issue. In our garden I have two shovels. One to scrape the poo onto the other. Then it goes into black bin bag and then into wheelie bin. I like to put poo in every bin bag as I think it would put off people trying to steal identity. When out walking I never use a bag alone. Too squishy. Best thing I ever found was a black plastic dog poo picker. You put poo bag over the picker which is small enough to go in pocket. It opens like a jaw and you then close it over poo. Pull back inside out and fasten. If poo too slimey to pick all up you could try covering the residue (tiny amount I hope) with soil ar sand with your shoe. Otherwise you have no choice but to leve the slimey residue for the rain to wash away.