Pumpkin for loose stools... Two related questions...

[Richard Crowe]

1. I realize that pumpkin is good for loose stools (or rather to prevent the stool from being loose) but is it pumpkin alone or do other members of the squash family work the same? 

 

2. Has anyone frozen cooked pumpkin?  It should be O.K., after-all they freeze pumpkin pies don't they?

I was thinking that after Halloween, when pumpkins are selling dirt cheaply, I would buy a couple and cook the pumpkin meat then freeze it.   I have a big freezer, so storage room would be no problem,  It would be a lot less expensive than canned pumpkin and probably better for my doodle.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Here's a link to the product I bought:
http://www.petfooddirect.com/Product/3203/2057703

[Sally loves Maple & Lucky]

In a pinch, I tried orange squash...
Thanks for this info everyone. It was very timely for us. The day we left for vacation, Lucky went loose. Reading these comments from my iphone on the road, I went searching for pumpkin. I found organic pumpkin pie mix in a can, but wasn't sure how the spices would affect her. Then we were on the island, and the selection was slim. I resorted to baby food squash and it worked to improve the stools but was a more gradual progression to normal - about 5 meals.

[Sally, Echo and Emmi]

There is a product from Honest Kitchen called Perfect Form that has worked wonderfully for my two doodles.

http://www.thehonestkitchen.com/products/perfect-form/

Check it out

[Sally loves Maple & Lucky]

thanks Sally. looks like a good product for our Doods!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

You were right in not buying pumpkin pie mix.

[Sally loves Maple & Lucky]

yeah, organic or not those spices could be bad for her. Alhough I KNOW she would have loved it!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Plus, it wouldn't do what you need it to do, because it doesn't contain as much fiber.

[Richard Crowe]

As per suggextions on this forum; we have experimented with the "topping" we use on the kibble we feed our Maltese. We cooked beef (in this case it was a cut up chuck roast with fat removed), carrots and sweet potatoes (in lieu of the white potatoes which we have used in the past) in roughly equal proportions using a slow cooker. We then processed the mixture in a Cuisinart and use this as a "topping" over the kibble we feed our Maltese. We leave the skins on both the potatoes and carrots. This not only retains vitamins but makes the preparation quicker and easier. The stools of the Maltese are exceptionally firm after feeding the mixture. We have a Maltese mother of four puppies who has been bothered by lose stools and this mixture has firmed her poop.

Normally, we feed Holly 1.5 patties of Nature's Variety frozen raw beef daily; one patty in the morning and a half-patty in the afternoon. We are going to introduce the sweet potato, carrot and beef mixture into her diet gradually and see how it works.

This would be exceptionally handy for us when we travel in our motorhome. We don't have a large freezer in which to carry quantities of Nature's Variety food and have often found that we have to travel long distances to find the food. When we were in Natchez, MS, the next place on our route in which that food was available was Monroe, LA; several hundred miles distant.

If we can either replace, or even just supplement, the Nature's Variety food with the sweet potato, carrot and beef mixture, that would do a lot to free us from worrying about Holly's food supply.

I wonder how yams would work instead of sweet potatoes in our concoction? They are exceptionally plentiful and inexpensive around Thanksgiving.

BTW: our Maltese just love the sweet potato, carrot and beef mixture and we have fed Holly a spoonful or so and she thinks that it is delicious. So this has been successful at one end of Holly and we will experiment gradually to learn if it will be successful at her other end.

[Richard Crowe]

We also Metamucil for exceptionally loose stool. It seems like a contradiction in terms but, this has been recommended by several vets over a period of time. Of course, you don't mix it with a glass of water like in human consumption, you just put a teaspoon of the dry mixture over their food, expecially neat food like the rice and chicken mixture we feed for loose stool. The Metamucil will absorb a lot of the water in the intestine and firm up the stool.