
Go back to feeding like you did when they were a pup divide their daily food allowance into four to six smaller meals. It is also helpful to feed little and often. These options are gentle on the gut and can give it a chance to heal. Take them off their regular food (unless advised otherwise by a vet) and offer easy-to-digest morsels such as boiled chicken, turkey, or white fish meat, bulked up with plain carbohydrates such as boiled white rice. Sensible options to nurse the dog along are to put them on a bland diet. The other side of the coin is that what you do at home could potentially make things worse, rather than better. This is because the problem is no longer 'simple' and home remedies are unlikely to help. If a dog has diarrhea and loses weight, it's important to visit the vet. Problems with another organ that cause gut inflammation or spasm as a complication.
Inflammatory bowel disease: The inflamed gut wall prevents absorption. Low cobalamin levels: This B-vitamin is essential to healthy digestion, but levels can be run down over time. Bacterial overgrowth: This happens when bacteria necessary for digestion are booted out and replaced by 'bad' bacteria. Įxamples of problems that can cause small intestinal diarrhea include: Looking at it the other way round, if the gut is unhealthy further downstream (in the large intestine), most of the digestion has already taken place and this is not likely to cause a dog weight loss. Anything that interferes with how the small intestine works means the body can't harvest the goodness (and calories) out of food. It is the job of the small intestine to finish breaking down food into bite-sized chunks (on a molecular level) that can pass across the gut wall and be absorbed into the bloodstream. It works in the same way that a vehicle has a gas tank, fuel pump, and exhaust system. The gut is a wonderful thing from the gullet to the stomach, intestine to the rectum, each part is designed for a special task. Secondly, the problem has been present for some time. First, it suggests the problem lies in the small intestine. When diarrhea causes dog weight loss, this is a tell-tale sign of two things. How does diarrhea cause dog weight loss ? It's super helpful for the vet to know if the dog is straining, as well as how many times a day they go. Also, follow the dog outside to watch proceedings. So if your dog has a stomach upset, don't be bashful about taking photos of the offering for the vet to see first-hand if there is blood or mucus, and how runny the poop is. This can happen due to food passing through too quickly or because the gut wall is thickened or inflamed.īelieve it or not (or perhaps you'd rather not know), what the stool looks like and how often the dog poops can give the vet valuable clues as to what's wrong.
Thus, diarrhea is a sign that the gut is sick and not able to absorb water as nature intended. If the problem is bad enough, the result is diarrhea. The more quickly it passes along, the less chance there is for water to be reabsorbed-which means a watery stool. This doesn't happen by chance, but depends on how long food takes to pass along the gut. Dog diarrhea 101Ī normal stool is one that is a formed sausage shape and easily scooped up. Simple diarrhea has various causes usually sorts itself out after a day or two. Contrast this with simple diarrhea, which is often found in the snack-happy hound who scavenges.
When another symptom is present, such as vomiting, blood, or weight loss, this moves things up a level from a simple problem to something that needs taking more seriously. This is because diarrhea that causes weight loss can be a sign of another condition that causes a tummy upset as a complication. Diarrhea that causes dog weight loss is not just unpleasant, it's a problem that needs vet attention.