Dog poo problem

We recently switched our Two Weimaraners to "Taste of the Wild" dried food, it doesn't contain wheat or any other bulking agents, they do lots of different formulas, so you can choose the one to best suit your breed.

Stools are much smaller and more solid as they metabolise more of the food, you also feed them smaller quantities.

Can't recommend it enough, nothing worse than dealing with sloppy dog poop.......Ok maybe turning cast iron comes close

Alan - I tried looking for "Taste of the Wild" but it seems like it's only available from Kennelpak in Nottingham? (I'm assuming you are in the UK?) Is that so or is it readily available and how cost effective is it?

Chris

(Not sure if turning CI is worse than sloppy doggy do, both are pretty grim at times)

Kennelgate are all over the place and sell Taste of the Wild.

Why not just buy real meat from the butcher at half the price?

Dogs have co-evolved with humans and are readily able to digest a mixed diet, unlike wild wolves.

Cats can't so if you want cheap all-meat food for a dog whose digestive system is sensitive to cereals, try them on cat food.

Best dog food fail I came across was someone reading the ingredients then posting "Why do they put ash in dog food, that's disgusting!"

Friend of mine has a feed mill and also makes dog biscuit since all farmers also have dogs. When they add colouring to some of it and mix in with the natural brown it sells far better. Dogs can't see the coloured bits but it's the humans what buy it.

I fed the previous hound on Iams, which claims to result in more solid excrement, easier to pick up, but the current terrier is alergic to cereals, so gets Wafcol salmon and potato. Seems this is common in white dogs according to the vet. When we managed to run out a couple of days before the end of a holiday in Cornwall I couldn't find any locally, so SWMBO made hi some tinned salmon and potato fishcake. She wouldn't have done it for me!

Otley,

join the facebook page "Border Collies" always good for info.......

I don't bother with F/B, but her indoors does it......and u can get ur daily fix on POOOOOPy's......

our tribe (4) range from 1-13 years old only get dried food once they've grown up, if-ever that is.......not regu but her indoors cooks for them wet food, never buy tins or crap......and, we live in a very hard water area, so their drinking water is the same as our's......Brita filtered.......had a dog with bladder stones, never again........

our's are healthy and of the correct weight......

Poo is firm too solid, and def better since we got rid of the chickens and ducks......!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another thing to watch for is what we call cat snacks......the dogs find it and dig it up....munchies....mmmmmnnn...

Anybody want a POOOOOPy.......? we have some in the oven....hahaha....

hope it all works out well.....clogs

Pet diets has more nonsense and assumptions written about it from owners who transfer their personal experiences to an assumtpion that it's right for everyone than many other subjects.

There are some, few, breed and dog size specific issues one sould allow for.. that small breed dogs are generally more prone to dental issues than the larger breeds such that the texture of food can be manipulated to assist. A claasic bred like the Dalmatian has a predisposition to protein 'allergies' (look up dalmatian bronzing syndrome if interested) and a subset with difficulties convering uric acid to urea. Other breeds may have statistical tendencies to their own issues but this is usually manifest because people pick one convenient bag of food and that highlights the problem.

Any half-decent manufacturer of dog food follows the bell-curve of minimum dietary requirements but sometimes they fail to monitor excesses. Premium (so called life stage) diets come from manufactureres that manipulate the bell curves of those diet rquirements to help specific syndromes but still stay within that curve.

Variation is probably the key to avoding intolerances and for most folk reducing the excesses they feed their dogs would probably be beneficial. However reducing the bulk of stool is probably a bad idea and Id guess I solved more digestive problems by recommending bulking agents than the other way around.

I used to suggest that owners without a peanut allergy might try eating a handful of roast monkey nuts.. shells and all.. and assess the benefits for themselves- the ideal being a big product that floats in the pan! And for their dogs often the answer was to shell the peanuts and grind the shels up into the dog's food as a solution for anal sac problems, colitis and the like.

When it comes to texture I used to suggest to folk they eat some biscuits-- ginger nuts fr example- and then look at their own teeth. many biscuits just stick and dogs aren't so cooperative to brushing. Specifically marketed teeth cleaning things often come up short of working. The only really relaible one I came across is Hills T/D and my own dog gets some of that (overpriced) stuff daily to solve the problem of recurrent dental scaling. Bones and raw food also work but obvious hazards and my own hound just gets distressed rushign around the farm buryng and digging up the bone to re-hide it. And ends up with a raw bleeding nose.

Clogs,

Bladder crystals and stones is a hugely interesting subject. Their are several different stone types seen and the only universal prevention is to drink more water and keep everything in solutin. The cats they usually form whether urine is sterile or not but in dogs it's more liekly that the classic triple phosphate type of stone is made up of layers of mineral and bacteria and often formed firstly as crystallisation on a bacterial 'seed'. It's also more likely to be down to house-training and retaining urine than to any mineral content in water - just think how a dog happily eats bones for calcium intake compared to dissolved calcium in water. High magnesium water areas don't correlate with bladder issues in people (yeah, I know their not dogs but the statistics are easier to gather). Its down to aspects of diet which will affects urine pH and how well stuff stays in solution and urine conventration except for those cysteine or uric acid patients.

I've had dogs for over 50 years now, mostly lab cross. The one bit of advice I would give if you have a dog with digestion problems is do not stand behind them.

A rotary mower? Yes,I know all about that one !! Been there,done that !

My advice?

Put up a little fence between the patio and the lawn.and keep the hose to hand

Neil