Advice appreciated

[Snoopysimaginaryfriend]

Hello everyone.

Our lovely little border terrier boy is 24 weeks old tomorrow. He is a sweet natured little guy, fun loving and so friendly. However, he is prone to bouts of diarrhoea. Generally this will only be one movement and for the most part his stools are ok, not great but ok. We're very strict about not giving him human food and we haven't seen him actually eat anything he shouldn't although he absolutely loves drinking water out of muddy puddles.

He was on James wellbeloved but we couldn't find the pouches so decided to try the wainwright puppy trays which are so highly recommended on allaboutddogfood. Cue diarrhoea, and not just one movement but every movement. He even went in his crate at night which he has never done before. Vets not overly concerned as he is still very lively, still eating and drinking fine. Advised home made chicken and rice which we have started this morning.

I know in all likelihood he will be right as rain soon but I hate to think of him suffering and I've now convinced myself he has colitis (probably from a mixture of googling and pregnancy hormones). We really want to get him onto a good food that will not cause him any problems before May when I will hopefully be on maternity leave, both for his sake and so we can bulk buy because money will be tight.

I guess what I'm asking is has anyone else had these problems with their puppy and how did you find the right food for them.

Thank you, sorry this is so long.

Will do. I hate to think he's suffering but honestly if I hadn't been cleaning it up myself I wouldn't be able to tell, the way he's running around.

the faster he runs the faster his digestion will be! Is he getting plenty of downtime?

You will notice on any day, and out running/playing poo's will get thinner/wetter.

dpups are widely known for having all manner of varieties emanating from their rear ends!

Make sure he is getting plenty of sleep times to calm him in case on over-adrenalisation.

Our Lab has regular runs (and very smelly wind) until we switched him onto Millies Wolfheart Countryside mix at around months. Within 2-3 days smelly wind was gone and poos were lovely and firm.

Have tried Millies Wolfheart Riverside and Gameskeepers for variety and the wind started again (ok mixed them in smaller quantities with the countryside to use up). He's fine on Countryside Mix with 25% Salmon & Veg mixed in.

We like Millies because its grain free and excellent quality. But they have a lot of recipes you can try to find out which one suits best.

Also make sure you don't overfeed as this can cause diahorrea. We've always found recommended quantities to feed on the high side for our lab who gets below the min recommended quantity for his 33kg weight.

Start very low (below the min rec) and increase slowly monitoring the poo as you go, if it starts to get softer go back to the previous quantity.

why can't ddogs eat meat ? and seemingly not many of the dried foods either. Maybe new owners should be interrogating breeders before buying dpups about their own ddogs diets.

From what i have heard its no particular one that works, its a matter of trialling many to see which works best.

As a rule the dried foods produce much vaster quantities of looser poos and demand much harder work on the kidneys because of the extra water intake needed, and the proof of the amount of wasted ingredients in the food bought is in the quantity of it thats excreted!

any over-feeding will produce noxious gases! and shouldn't be the norm, needing investigating.

My dog is on Miliies Tracker mix and he does one firm motion a day ( occasionally 2 ) , his favourite food is chicken but even the tiniest amount gives him wind and loose stools . I reckon most dogs poo issues( amount / consistency) is down to over feeding .

My dog was always like this when a puppy. We then put him on Lily's Kitchen dried food and his tummy is fine on it.

I don't think I'm over feeding, the food comes with a feeding guide and if anything I might be under feeding a little as I think he's put on little weight on.

amount /consistency is down to what they eat, definitely not just the quantity.

My Shih Tzu is on Millie's and it has been great. No farts, no soft poo. He has long, fluffy hair and we need neat little deposits, or it's a disaster! Millie's has been a godsend.

i was recommended the tesco's cheapy one recently, by two people separately and the owners swore by it when they'd changed to it, so i guess it is just whatever suits!

Its pretty bad state of affairs that ddogs are struggling to eat this stuff so much, and even worse if they can't even eat real food without upset.

ddogs not being able to eat without stomach upset is a travesty, what is going on all over the place?! again, is it the food or the ddogs?!

Well the little guy is much better now, only going two/three times a day and they are a lot more solid. The problem is now I'm petrified of moving him off of chicken and rice.

I've read so much about dogs diets it's making my head spin. So many differing views.