# Chronic soft stool (help)



## makettle29 (Nov 12, 2005)

Hi,

I hope you can help.

Hercules has chronic loose stool. Not quite colitis (no mucus) but never firmer than soft serve (sorry, gross). 

I've had him on Natural Balance Duck and Potato for some time but it seems to have gotten softer over time. I tried substituting California Natural with no better results. I took him off of the duck jerky thinking that was a problem and no improvement. He gets a few natural balance biscuits in the morning with the same ingredients as the kibble. I also crush some Stella and Chewy's Duck over the kibble for variety.

I rarely feed him human food with the exception of a crust of bread and a little cheese which I use to cover the metronitozole that I sometimes give him when desperate. For a while I gave him sweet potato chew and it seemed to firm it up but it didn't last.

Any suggestions about food that creates firmer stool. My other Malt, Athena has some of the same trouble tho not as bad.

I had both their stools checked a month ago with their physicals and all is good.

thanks for the responses.


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## CrystalAndZoe (Jul 11, 2006)

I feel your pain. I battled more then just soft stool with Jett over 6 months when I first got him. His was severe diarrhea and he even would get dehydrated it was so bad. Unfortunately, I don't think one thing works for every situation. 

This is what worked for us. I put Jett on a soft, limited diet. Limited meaning one protein & one carb. Then they add vitamins & minerals to make it complete. The reason a soft food or diet is important is it helps to heal the digestive tract. The only treats that he got was a form of either the protein or carb that was in the food. I also needed to add a good probiotic to his diet and that was a miracle in a bottle for us. Jett now can eat anything and is totally fine, however he is one that I do have to watch for stress induced colitis.

For a customer of mine, what worked was simply switching to a grain free food. Our next step was to add probiotics but just switching to grain free was all she needed.

Hope this helps.


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## maggieh (Dec 16, 2007)

As Crystal said, what works for one doesn't always work for others. I found adding a probiotic helpful for both of mine, but what really worked for Tessa was changing her food to a protein other than chicken. She does well on both venison and lamb but chicken really caused problems for her.


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## edelweiss (Apr 23, 2010)

Besides the other good advice above you can also try pumpkin, rice and bananas in the diet. It sounds like an issue w/diet or stress, probably both.
If you are giving any kind of rawhides or chewies that would also be suspect.
I find that lots of small dogs don't tolerate the high protein kibble---so I use a lower protein (I know people on here have other opinions, but I only give 1/8 C. day) and I home cook good protein. I keep my dog on kibble so that I can use it as an emergency fall back when I travel---a side effect is that it firms the stool.
Kitzel has the healthiest digestion of ANY maltese I have ever had---so I know that dogs are just plain different in their constitutions---regardless of what we do. You may have to find out what works for you by trial and error.
Wishing you success soon!
hugs


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## makettle29 (Nov 12, 2005)

Thanks for the response! I'm going to try a soft diet for a while and add
probiotics.

How do you add probiotics? What forms do they come in?

muchas gracias!

mary anna


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## CrystalAndZoe (Jul 11, 2006)

makettle29 said:


> Thanks for the response! I'm going to try a soft diet for a while and add
> probiotics.
> 
> How do you add probiotics? What forms do they come in?
> ...


The one from Animal Essentials is a powder that I just mix into their foo. Super easy to give.:thumbsup:


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