Should I be concerned about poop problem?

Hi,

I have a 12 month old chihuahua who otherwise seems healthy but when he poops he does a normal, firm poop but a couple of minutes after he does a sloppy poop and this happens most days. I feed him dry dog food & my own home cooked food (chicken, rice & veg). Is this something i should be worried about? Is there anything i can do? Should i change his diet?

Thanx for any advice you can give me,

Debs

Try him on raw chicken wings.

Hi Debs&Gino, and welcome to DogForum

If this is a regular occurrence and isn't associated with bleeding, pain or being unwell then I don't necessarily think that there's an issue with your little one's diet or digestion, he just sounds like his body has a slightly larger mass movement when he goes for a poo than his sigmoid colon and rectum can hold.

When food passes through the gut at an ordinary speed it starts off very wet in the stomach and small bowel, and once you've had a drink and stomach acid and enzymes and bile have all been mixed with the food it's effectively a thick liquid. The stomach and the top of the small intestines break down the food, lower down in the small intestines and into the first part of the large bowel nutrients are absorbed into the body and the principle function of the large bowel is the reabsorption of liquid back out of the bowel and into the bloodstream. This means that as far down as quite a long way along the large bowel, if you were to look at the food/faeces, they're all liquid. It only gets firmed up right down at the bottom end of the large bowel and rectum.

If you have diarrhoea what is actually happening is that your bowel transit is speeded up, meaning that the faeces doesn't hang around long enough for you to absorb the water back out of it and therefore it's liquid as it leaves the body.

What your description sounds like to me (if this is a regular and predictable thing) is that your little one gets very excited about going out (which is normal for a puppy or young dog) and the adrenaline which is released as a result of this excitement causes a little burst of bowel transit, meaning that some of the more liquid faeces from further up the large bowel stimulates a second poo. Exercise can also cause an adrenaline release, so a dog is more likely to need to go for a poo after running around.

You could feed him a little raw bone (of the right size for his mouth and gut) which firms up the poo, or you could try him with a spoonful of bran in his cooked food, which has a similar effect. Clearly, if he passes blood, or he has pain or is unwell or dehydrated then he needs to see a vet.