DRY OR CANNED FOOD FOR STIFFER STOOLS AND EASY ON A DELICATE TUMMY

Question
Searching for dry or canned food for easier pickup/stiffer stools. My dog is a 2.5 yr. old beautiful purebred American Cocker, and he is allergic to soy. Has a sensitive stomach and gets scared, nervous easily. Your recommendation, please?  

Answer
I am not sure dry or canned makes much difference.  Canned contains more water, but dogs eating dry just make up for it by drinking more.  Select a food with meat or meat meal as its first ingredient.  Avoid ones with with any soy on the ingredient list.  The further down any grain, the better.  There is a lot of hype, misinformation, and outright lies in discussion of dog food, but it is true, the less grain, the smaller and firmer the stools.  Sticking to the same protein source may make future allergy problems easier to work around.  

I would also have the vet do fecal checks.  Sometimes it takes repeated ones to find a problem.  No matter what you feed a dog, parasites lead to soft stools.  

You may want to settle his digestion with a bland diet before introducing a new food.  

If a dog is having trouble keeping anything down or continuing diarrhea try this out of the manual I have from a large, knowledgeable dog guide school.

Bland recovery diet for dogs.

3 parts cooked rice, one part boiled hamburger or chicken, or cottage cheese. I think you can substitute boiled potatoes for the rice. Once in an emergency, we bought a plain baked potato from Wendy's.

This is meant for short time settling a dog's digestive tract. It is not the complete and balanced diet they need long term. I have seen it work.


If the bland diet fails to firm up the dog, chance are it has parasites or it is allergic to one of the ingredients in the bland diet.