Food to prevent runny poos?

[ancientgeordiegirl]

hi - I would love advice on food for my 16 month old lab/cocker spaniel x. She seems to have very soft poos and I wondered if this was normal for either Labs or cocker spaniels? She is happy in herself, has a good appetite and is a great weight. She was at the vet last week for her jabs and the vet thought she was in fine form. I just find the consistency of her poos very hard to deal with as when I'm trying to pick them up off the pavement they are often soft enough that they leave big smears which I'm then conscious of someone stepping in! At the moment she is just on Waggs Kibble mix but I'd switch her if there is a type of food that might give her firmer poos.

Composition
Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives (5% chicken in brown chunk), Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Vegetables (4% peas in pea kibble, 4% carrots in carrot kibble), Minerals, Yeasts (0.08%), Citrus Extract (0.04%) & Yucca Extract (0.01%).

Awful stuff, no meat content to speak of and the cereals just go right through a lot of dogs. Choose something with a high content of a named meat, as few cereals as possible (and no wheat as a priority) and rice or potato filler over things like maize.

A raw diet will result in little chalky pellets but I appreciate raw isn't for everyone so consider things like Fish4Dogs, Arden Grange, Skinners Salmon/Duck/Turkey and rice, Wainwrights, Fishmongers. Orijen and Acana up at the premium end, Skinners at the lower budget.

I used to feed Wagg and my dog constantly had runny poo, runny eyes, itchy, dull coat etc. I was finding that a large sack was lasting about 5-6 weeks as I was having to feed loads to fill her, and she was crapping for Britain!

I've now tried several of the more premium brands and have settled on Applaws dried. It has 75% meat content and she loves it. Poos twice a day, nice and firm and tiny compared to how they used to be. Her coat and eyes are healthier, and a large sack lasts 12-16 weeks, so it actually isn't costing me any more money as she doesn't eat as much (dog is free fed so I just fill the bowl when it's empty, I never weigh or measure her food and she's a perfect weight for her size).

Cheap food is false economy IMO.

We feed raw when we have time for it and if we are particularly busy, we give ours Burns, which they love and they don't go off it part way through a bag unlike some other brands. Our girl is particularly prone to soft poo, but not when on these.

I also worked out how much we spend on feeding our dogs the other day too. When we feed raw, it only costs 35p per day, per dog.

This is exactly the story with our Staffie, healthy but came to us with very soft poo and being fed on Wagg. We changed him to Wainwrights turke and rice and he now has poo that is easy to pick up. It is very good quality food composition:

Brown rice (38%), Turkey (30%) (Turkey Meat Meal, Turkey Gravy), Barley (17%), Sugar Beet Pulp (6%), Rapeseed Oil (3%), Whole Linseed (3%), Alfalfa (2%), Minerals (includes Yucca Extract 200mg/kg, Marigold Meal 50mg/kg, Rosemary Extract 5mg/kg), Seaweed (0.5%).

But is a little bit cheaper than some brands as it is Pets at home own brand. 15kg lasts about 6 weeks so costs about £6.66 pw.

thanks for all your replies - I'm definitely going to try her on something else - as luck would have it am just doing my online shop and Arden Grange is stocked so will try that. Has anyone tried Vets Kitchen ? I looked at the composition and it's 36% chicken meal, 18% brown rice and 18% white rice with various other oils, cereals, minerals etc with Nutitional information per 100g of 28% protein, 14% oil, 8% Ash, 3.5% Fibre and Copper 21mg/kg. I was drawn to it as I used to fancy that Vet Joe Inglis from the TV and he's behind this brand!

Cost really wasn't the reason I had her on Wagg a friend with a lab who has a gorgeous glossy coat swore by it so I thought I'd give it a go - however if I can reduce the number of soft runny poos that is the way forward!

My GSP is on Skinners duck and rice/turkey and rice/salmon and rice. Definitely worth a look.

I swear by Quantum lamb and rice. Until this everything went straight through our dog ! It is supposedly good for colitis etc