brookcove
Posted : 10/28/2008 11:49:36 AM
tdlabrie
Lots of folks on this board are waaaayyyyy more knowledgeable about this stuff than I. That said, however, I think if you Google around a little bit, you'll see that a very frequent remark to eliminate runny poop (not due to illness or allergy obviously) is to feed bones, uncooked of course.
This is true. In my experience, sometimes it works, apparently, by simply diluting the dog's exposure to irritating triggers in the diet.
However, and this is just sort of an interesting thing to discuss - sometimes I wonder whether the switch to raw ("prey" style) works so well is because it is linked to raising the level of calcium in the diet (properly balanced). In other words, the ratio of Ca/Ph is correct, but the absolute amounts go to two to five times the recommended level, as is typical and unavoidable in such diets.
I've "tested" this when I had a dog that was sensitive to many rmbs, but responded well when calcium was supplemented bia bone meal. I've since done the same in dogs recovering from gastroenteritis or long exposure to antibiotics, with good success. Why would that have a beneficial effect on stool qualities?
I have a funky little theory about this. Calcium has a pH increasing effect. Increased pH favors beneficial bacterial growth. Decreased pH favors the growth of bacteria which compete with the good bugs in your dog's gi. Those nice solid stools are almost completely dependent on the proper level of good bacteria to assist in the digestive process.
It's not just that they break down food - as they work on the food in your dog's gut, they produce various chemical keys that allow transport/engineering molecules to do their various jobs - whether it's taking water or other simple nutrients out into the bloodstream, or breaking down and restructuring the more complex nutrients or ones that need transformation to be transported safely (like iron).
If these bacteria are at a low level, bacteria can thrive which irritates the gut and challenges the immune system. Irritation also can initiate mechanical malfunction of the gut in the form of cramping or too frequent contraction which speeds material through too quickly, before water is removed.
Okay, so my theory is that the calcium is temporarily raising the pH levels long enough to heal the gut. The body will fairly quickly balance things back out again, but by then the good bacteria has had a chance to thrive.
If you've gotten through all this and actually follow what I'm saying (LOL - it would be my fault if I failed to put this lesson in microbiology in lay terms) please do not think the moral of this story is, feed your dog a huge dose of calcium the next time his tummy is mildly upset. Actually, my advice is the same as I've given above.
Bland diet, try a high quality probiotic, journal your dog's symptoms, and see the vet. Long term, dogs who benefit from a "Boney" diet might get even more out of a prebiotic supplement, like FOS, or one of the inulin veggies (chicory root, jicama, Jerusalem artichoke), or another form of soluble fiber. The advantage of these is that they pass unchanged through the stomach and upper small intestine - an extremely challenging environment in dogs - where probiotic supplements only get through on the strength of numbers (1 BILLION CFU is the minimum acceptable dose).