Burns Dog food - loose stools

dawnie1972

All

Following my dog being diagnosed with pancreatitis last August, it was agreed after xmas that she could go back onto normal food (with caution) as her bloods were normal.
As recommended I switched her to Burns, and she has so far had Burns Chicken & Rice and Burns Weight Control. The Burns Chicken & Rice made her very very loose so after a week or so of this not settling down I switched her to the Burns Weight Control (some of you may recall she put on 2kg in 4 months on the Hills Prescription Diet low fat), her stools are much improved but what I'm struggling to cope with is the amount - she is walked first thing in the morning and passes a stool, she is walked midday day and again passes a stool, she is walked when I get home from work and again passes a stool but more often than not I am finding she has also done a stool in the house whilst I am at work and during the night - my common sense is telling me that the weight control food is getting rid of excess rubbish hence why she is going to the toilet more (and that in turns reduces the weight increase. Any advice please.

Johnny_Dangerously

I think going in the house is likely to be more of a sign of not having control, rather than just clearing out, and would suggest there is some irritation there. Without wanting to be too gross, is the night stool loose?

sheramber

Weight control food will contain a lot of bulky filler so the dog feels full.

That bulk is waste product hence the increase in number of stools.

When I collected my rescue !!!!! she was being fed Wagg and I was told she produced 5 stools a day.

I switched her to raw, the same as my other dog , and she immediately produced one stool a day.

fairymoneysaver

Is the diet high fibre? One of my dogs used to be on Hills w/d and produced 4-5 stools a day, often including one in the house at night. Vet was not worried. If your dog is doing well on the food she is on then I would stick with it for now.

dawnie1972

Johnny_Dangerously wrote: »

I think going in the house is likely to be more of a sign of not having control, rather than just clearing out, and would suggest there is some irritation there. Without wanting to be too gross, is the night stool loose?

Any stools that she currently passes are not firm but not runny

dawnie1972

fairymoneysaver wrote: »

Is the diet high fibre? One of my dogs used to be on Hills w/d and produced 4-5 stools a day, often including one in the house at night. Vet was not worried. If your dog is doing well on the food she is on then I would stick with it for now.

Actually says in the product information "less poo to clear up"! http://burnspet.co.uk/products/burns-for-dogs/burns-weight-control-dog-food.html

fairymoneysaver

dawnie1972 wrote: »

Actually says in the product information "less poo to clear up"! http://burnspet.co.uk/products/burns-for-dogs/burns-weight-control-dog-food.html

It does doesn't it? However it looks similar to the Hills w/d in that it is low fat/high fibre and used for the same medical conditions. I was told extra poo is normal on the w/d diet (I was feeding more than the recommended amount for the weight of my dog though).

Maybe email or ring Burns? I believe they are quite helpful.

happysaz133

I found all Burns food made my dogs loose, I think it just doesn't suit some dogs. I switched to Arden Grange and Wainwrights Grain Free and since then we've had no more problems. Both are cheaper than Burns too, and have less fillers!

pawsies

I would go back to original chicken/lamb/fish and rice and add naturediet (or similar) to make it more palatable.

The naturediet has bone in which should help firm her up more

If you don't notice any difference increase the amount of naturediet and reduce the burns.

Rev

Dogs aren't like humans, they don't have 5/6lb of crap stored in their intestines waiting to be passed, so shes not getting rid of excess crap, shes just passing the food she has eaten. Their digestive tract is massively smaller than ours.

And it's very simple the more filler in the food, the more they poo.

Here's the ingredients of burns weight control.

Oats (55%), Brown Rice (18%), Chicken Meal (17%), Peas, Chicken Oil, Seaweed, Vitamins & Minerals

The bits in bold are filler, dogs can't properly digest rice or oats etc so all they do is come back out the other end. Grain is also a massive allergen to dogs, so the gigantic amount of it could very well be the cause of the lose stools.

Your dogs food is currently 70% filler. So it stands to reason she will pass a lot more stools. No wonder it's called weight control, there is very little in it besides filler. I can't believe it's as expensive as it is given the ingredients.

Obviously I have no idea why your dog is on this food so please don't take any of my comment as a negative, I'm just trying to explain to you why your dog is passing so many stools.

Just to add, as the poster above suggested adding wet food, look at wainwrights from pets at home, it is very high in fibre so should, if you decide to go that route, help firm her stools up.

rising_from_the_ashes

The Burns Weight Control has a LOT of oats in it - I tried it for Maisie when I was trying to shift weight off her but it didn't agree with her

It might just have too many in for your dog too 55% oats and 18% rice is an awful lot of bulk - and could well explain the amount of poop that is being produced


Have you considered a wet food?

There are generally more good low fat wet foods around & these are often easier on sensitive tummies