Goldendoodle with a sensitive tummy

[Audrey Alegre]

Hello all,

Hopefully anyone can help with any advice or experiences you may have had with your doodles tummy. Our 5 month f1 has had persistant diarrhea off and on for the past few months. He's been negative in all if his fecal and giarda tests. We've done the antibiotics and it usually helps for a short amount time.

He's on wellness puppy large breed and the vet thinks we should swirtch his food out to a prescription food - royal canine High energy Gastro. But, we wanted to see if there was a simple ingredient food that would work better?

Which brand do you feed your doodle? And does anyone have a doodle with a sensitive tummy?

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Welcome to the Food Group, Audrey. All of the questions and issues you've mentioned have been discussed here many times before. 

First, any time your dog is on antibiotics, you must give them probiotics, or the diarrhea will return worse than ever when the antibiotics are discontinued. This is because the antibiotics destroy all the good bacteria in the gut along with the bad, and the beneficial bacteria is necessary for proper stool formation. This is particularly true with metronidazole, (Flagyl) which many vets prescribe any time a dog has diarrhea. This led many of us to believe that it was a harmless drug...but it isn't, and it should never be given without a good reason, i.e. a diagnosed infection. (Even when a dog is positive for giardia, metronidazole is still not the best or most effective drug to treat it; you want Panacur.)

So the first thing I would suggest is to order a probiotic called Proviable DC, which is a high quality probiotic that many people here have had success with. You want a probiotic with at least 5 billion cultures per dose. What you do not want is Fortiflora, sold by some vets and made by Purina. 

The next thing you need to know is that there is no nutrition curriculum in vet school and what little education in nutrition most vets get is provided by Hills Science Diet, Purina, and Mars (makers of Royal Canin). It's not a coincidence that these are the makers of the Rx foods that the vets sell for a good profit, and this is of course a conflict of interest. Our doctors are not experts in nutrition either, but they don;t sell or recommend food. So shocking as it may seem, my advice is not to take your vet's advice about food, and unless there is liver or kidney disease, not to ever buy Rx food from the vet or anyone else. It contains no medicinal or therapeutic ingredients, and the ingredients it does contain are among the cheapest and  least healthy things imaginable. Some good info: 

http://www.doodlekisses.com/group/thefoodgroup/forum/topics/why-you...

The Proviable should help a lot on firming up your puppy's stool. Adding fiber to his diet may help, too. Some people use canned pure pumpkin; I prefer mashed sweet potatoes. They contain more fiber and are cheaper. :)

Next, we have a list of recommended food brands here in the FG: http://www.doodlekisses.com/group/thefoodgroup/forum/topics/recomme...

These are all brands that contain only ingredients sourced in North America, nothing from China, no artificial preservatives or colors, no wheat or corn, and they are not made by the huge multinational corporations that purchase ingredients through third party food brokers.

Lots of people here have doodles with sensitive stomachs. Different kinds of foods work better for different dogs. For many of us a limited ingredient formula works best. Grain free formulas are usually also often helpful for issues with loose stool.

I think you said you are feeding Wellness Complete Health Large Puppy? Wellness is a good brand, but the Complete Health line may not be the best choice for your dog. The Core line, which is grain free, might be a better choice. Wellness also makes the Simple Solutions line, which is a very good limited ingredient (LID) line, but there is no puppy food in that line. It would still be fine for you puppy, you just need to feed more than you would for an adult dog of the same size.  Many puppies eat ALS (all life stages) foods and do just fine. 

Lastly, you don;t need a "large breed" formula unless your pup is expected to top 80 or 90 lbs as an adult, and even then it isn;t really necessary. 

I hope this helps. Your pup may not really have a sensitive stomach, but repeated courses of antibiotics in puppyhood without a good probiotic often cause chronic diarrhea, so be sure to start the probiotics before switching foods. 

[Audrey Alegre]

Karen and Jackdoodle,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. This is so helpful and you have so much knowledge about this. I feel like I wasn't getting accurate information and now I have.
I ordered the probiotic and will look into switching to the grain free Wellness.
Many thanks!
Audrey

[Nicol and Scully]

I also started out with Wellness. Went through a couple of bouts of giardia, but have been cleared. Even after a negative read, my 4-month old has had diarrhea more often than not since the day we brought him home. After a lot of research, I suspect that the antibiotics used to treat his giardia may have wiped out a lot of the "good" bacteria in his young system. I decided to try probiotics, Proviable DC, recommended by many in this group. I started to see normal poops after just a couple of days. I have also switched his food over to Earthborn Puppy Vantage, which he's tolerating very well.

However, I will also add that my last doodle had IBD. We kept her flare-ups at bay with a restricted diet (venison and sweet potato) and a daily Prilosec. Of course, I might try the probiotics in your case--especially if he's been on antibiotics. Even if it doesn't solve the issue, it couldn't hurt.

[Audrey Alegre]

Thanks so much for your reply! It's very helpful and reassuring to know ok
Not the only one.

Btw, which wellness food do you have your doodle on?

[Tara]

My puppy, now 5 months, has done really well on Wellness Core Puppy.  He was previously eating Earhborn Vantage--funny how what works for one dog doesn't for another!--and had stools that ran from rather soft to runny.  Good luck finding what works for your pup.