Hello everyone,
I’m currently scratching my head at one of our dogs. We have a Cavapoo who has just turned 1 and a 7 month old standard poodle - it’s the Cavapoo who we’re having problems with.
When we had her we chose Barking Heads as a decent food and moved her onto it (her breeder had been feeding her on a mixture of “whatever Tesco had on offer”) We noticed that she was not eating that much and was very picky with it so after trying everything to get her to eat (hot water to soften it, only leaving it down for 5 mins etc) over the course of a couple of months we came to the conclusion that she simply did not like it!
We decided to put her on Applaws - and that was when our problems really started because although she wolfed it down it really loosened her poos. I contacted Applaws for advice and to make sure we weren’t over feeding her and they advised to leave her on it for a month as her body needed to get used to the rich food. so we did and it didn’t really improve. She did stop trying to eat my rose bushes however but we had the other dog and she would eat his poo (he’s on Applaws large puppy food).
I mentioned it to the vet and he said to test if it was food related then a simple test would be to put her on chicken and rice for a few days. If it stopped then we needed to work out what was in the food causing it - if it didn’t then they would need to run tests.
Oh I use advocate every months on both dogs so unlikely to be worms.
The chicken and rice worked so now I needed to figure out what her trigger was (at this point our 4 year old could not play on the lawn as it would be unsafe for him ) I sat with both foods ingredients and the only difference I could see at the time was that Applaws contained white potato which the BH’s didn’t so thought that could be the problem.
I had discovered Millies and really liked what I was seeing in regards to their foods plus the price so I contacted them for advice on which recipes to try. We tried a potato free one and it did not really help so they suggested poultry could be a problem so we tried a different one and that didn’t help. Can I clarify that each time we changed the food over the course of a week and we left her on it for several weeks.
We ended up trying several of their recipes and were getting no where. I emailed them again (they are so helpful) and a different lady picked it up and pointed out about the protein levels as Applaws and the Millies ones we had been trying all had at least 30% and she may not stomach it esp since she is a small dog. So we tried one more Millies recipe which had 28% protein in it which drastically improved her poos but we were still getting loose ones.
I then decided to put her back on BH’s as we didn’t have this problem then and so over Christmas we moved her back onto the puppy food - interestingly she eats it fine now - maybe due to having another dog in the house IDK. Her Poo’s are the best they have been but we are still getting runny ones roughly once a day.
I really want to figure out why we are still getting these runny poos and I think there are a possible number of factors as she does eat the other dogs poo still - as I said he is on the Applaws large puppy food which that could cause it not just because she is eating poo but could it be the fact he is on Applaws that causes a problem. We do try and follow him around and clean up before she can get it but it’s not always possible as we not only do we have a young child but if it’s dark (he’s a black dog) and he goes down the garden I can’t always see what he’s doing LOL
The other thing that may or may not be related is the roses because now she is back on BH’s she has gone back to trying to eat them - and I mean the branches as there’s no flowers at the moment which as I said when she was on the Applaws and Millies she did not really touch them. Someone has suggested is this a vitamin thing - could it be. Some of her runny poos do clearly have plant matter in them.
I’m sure you can all see I am really confused as to what to do with this dog. Yes I know I need to take her to the vets but I wanted to see if anyone here can solve the mystery or if it turns out only something a vet can solve at least give me a good idea so I can prevent needless (and possibly expensive) tests being done. Please note that she has never been unwell through all of this - she is full of energy. Oh and now she has turned one we have moved her onto the adult BH’s (no change)
What do you guys think and how can I solve this because it’s not fair on her or us