{"id":131,"date":"2019-03-05T04:35:43","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T04:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/?p=131"},"modified":"2019-03-11T05:00:02","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T05:00:02","slug":"dog-poop-what-is-it-telling-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/dog-poop-what-is-it-telling-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog poop: What is it telling you?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Your dog can&#8217;t talk &#8211; but his body can<\/h2>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been a dog parent for any length of time, you know two things: One, that dogs will, sooner or later, put pretty much anything into their mouths, and this will, from time to time, cause them some gastrointestinal distress. Second, owning a dog means cleaning up poop &#8211; and gastrointestinal distress usually means more poop.<\/p>\n<p>In healthy dogs, most of the time, 24 hours of diarrhea isn&#8217;t a cause for concern, and you don&#8217;t immediately need to call your vet. Here&#8217;s what you can do at home:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make sure your dog has plenty of clean water to drink &#8211; and make sure you keep an eye on how much they&#8217;re drinking. The biggest immediate issue when a dog (or a person) has diarrhea is dehydration, so ensuring your dog is getting enough fluids is important. (Some dog parents say that adding diluted beef or chicken stock to the water will help a reluctant dog to drink more, but canned stock can be high in sodium, so shouldn&#8217;t be the first offering.)<\/li>\n<li>Provide small meals of boiled chicken (some vets will also advise boiled lean beef and low-fat cottage cheese) and rice. This is a mild diet that will help the dog&#8217;s system &#8216;calm down&#8217; and can be used for a couple of days<\/li>\n<li>Monitor your dog closely. A dog with some diarrhea who is otherwise behaving normally and drinking plenty of water is probably just suffering from what one vet calls &#8220;a culinary excursion&#8221;. A dog who becomes lethargic, refuses favourite treats, or whose diarrhea seems out of control probably needs to see a vet ASAP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We generally advise calling a vet sooner if your dog is very old or very young: Like elderly adults or very young children, even mild diarrhea can be more debilitating for these dogs.<\/p>\n<h2>And there&#8217;s more!<\/h2>\n<p>Of course, diarrhea isn&#8217;t the only poop-related issue for dogs. Here&#8217;s a handy chart from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.petmd.com\">PetMD<\/a> to help you understand what you&#8217;re seeing when you&#8217;re looking at your dog&#8217;s stool.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-133\" src=\"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/DogPoop1.png\" alt=\"Toronto veterinarian on dog poop \" width=\"498\" height=\"1338\" srcset=\"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/DogPoop1.png 498w, http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/DogPoop1-112x300.png 112w, http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/DogPoop1-381x1024.png 381w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 498px) 100vw, 498px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Your dog can&#8217;t talk &#8211; but his body can If you&#8217;ve been a dog parent for any length of time, you know two things: One, that dogs will, sooner or later, put pretty much anything into their mouths, and this will, from time to time, cause them some gastrointestinal distress. Second, owning a dog means cleaning up poop &#8211; and gastrointestinal distress usually means more poop. In healthy dogs, most of the time, 24 hours of diarrhea isn&#8217;t a cause for concern, and you don&#8217;t immediately need to call your vet. Here&#8217;s what you can do at home: Make sure your dog has plenty of clean water to drink &#8211; and make sure you keep an eye on how much they&#8217;re drinking. The biggest immediate issue when a dog (or a person) has diarrhea is dehydration, so ensuring your dog is getting enough fluids is important. (Some dog parents&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/libertyvillageanimalhospital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}