Long walks and poop (yorkie, spaniel, diet, diarrhea)

[Kalana]

We take our King Charles Spaniel on 45 min- 1 hour walks every morning. He actually has an enormous amount of energy and really needs a long walk to be able to chill out the rest of the day. The problem is that he will poop about 4x in that duration with the first one being a good solid one and as we go along they will get increasingly soft and then finally bordering on runny. I don't know if this is healthy for him and its also not so easy to pick up out of the grass (ick!) He gets dry kibble only for food. A friend of mine had suggested adding in pumpkin. Any ideas?

[OttoR]

Originally Posted by Kalana

We take our King Charles Spaniel on 45 min- 1 hour walks every morning. He actually has an enormous amount of energy and really needs a long walk to be able to chill out the rest of the day. The problem is that he will poop about 4x in that duration with the first one being a good solid one and as we go along they will get increasingly soft and then finally bordering on runny. I don't know if this is healthy for him and its also not so easy to pick up out of the grass (ick!) He gets dry kibble only for food. A friend of mine had suggested adding in pumpkin. Any ideas?

My young dog does this on kibble. She is typically fed raw and despite being almost 35 pounds, she will poop once in the morning and once at night, each time a couple of turds about the size of my pinky. She literally poops like a yorkie! However, when I have to feed her kibble (she actually just decided she didn't like the raw she's been eating her whole life and refuses to touch it), she will poop several times a day, BIG soft stinky poops and she does exactly what you describe on her long walks. She isn't nervous on the walks so I'm not sure why this happens. I give her Origen Regionals kibble.

[ansible90]

I don't think it's the food. My dog will do this sometimes. He usually does his business on our morning walk - often stops twice. In the late afternoon we usually go to the dog park. Sometimes he will poop there just because. And that last one is often small and runny because it was really too soon for him to have to go. I think they smell something from other dogs or animals and just have an urge to contribute, whether they have any or not.

[hiero2]

I find it pretty typical for a dog to poop during exercise. The movement gets things in the gut moving along, right? But the diarrhea late in the walk tells me something is off in the digestion. Keeping the gut in good health through exercise should result in better poop formation - neither constipated nor runny. If it's runny, something is going on. Every once in a while runny is fine - dog likely got into a tasty patch of grass, or maybe picked up something off the street that he shouldn't have. Those things pass. Runny on a regular basis is not so ok.

Possible causes are bacterial infections or diet (food). I suppose there are other possibilities, but those are the common causes. Some foods will give some dogs digestive issues - and it varies from dog to dog. Sometimes a change in food will create temporary digestive issues.

Dogs pee to "contribute", not poop. If they poop, it's because they have to go. If something comes out runny, it's not because the dog pushed it out early - poop doesn't get to the colon runny unless something is wrong.

With rescues, I have seen chronic diarrhea in the absence of problems, but that was most likely because the rescue had permanent GI tract damage from eating something really bad out of a dumpster.

[OttoR]

Apparently it is quite common (I’ve also had the issue with several fosters and a dog I dog sat for 6 weeks did it too). https://www.google.com/search?q=dog%...&client=safari. I don’t worry about it.

[bassetluv]

Originally Posted by hiero2

I find it pretty typical for a dog to poop during exercise. The movement gets things in the gut moving along, right? But the diarrhea late in the walk tells me something is off in the digestion. Keeping the gut in good health through exercise should result in better poop formation - neither constipated nor runny. If it's runny, something is going on. Every once in a while runny is fine - dog likely got into a tasty patch of grass, or maybe picked up something off the street that he shouldn't have. Those things pass. Runny on a regular basis is not so ok.

Possible causes are bacterial infections or diet (food). I suppose there are other possibilities, but those are the common causes. Some foods will give some dogs digestive issues - and it varies from dog to dog. Sometimes a change in food will create temporary digestive issues.

Dogs pee to "contribute", not poop. If they poop, it's because they have to go. If something comes out runny, it's not because the dog pushed it out early - poop doesn't get to the colon runny unless something is wrong.

With rescues, I have seen chronic diarrhea in the absence of problems, but that was most likely because the rescue had permanent GI tract damage from eating something really bad out of a dumpster.

^^^I agree with this.

My dog used to have digestive issues, dating back to the day I got him at 9 weeks old. The person who had the puppies had them on a very poor kibble - equatable to the 'Ol' Roy' brand - so I began weaning him off of that when I brought him home. I switched him to a better quality kibble (can't recall the brand now) but he wasn't doing much better...he would continually have either soft stool or diarrhea. So I weaned him again, this time switching to Blue Buffalo. Poops got a bit better, but he still had problems with going a LOT - in terms of volume, not number of times - and he'd go probably 3x during a walk, with each time getting softer. So a third time, I weaned him again...went from BB to Taste of the Wild. There was a bit more improvement, but again, still not quite normal.

Finally I took him off of kibble completely. Now I give him FreshPet Select (a refrigerated retail dog food) and will supplement it at times with home-cooked chicken, beef, veggies. I also from time to time will mix in some Honest Kitchen, and during hot weather or stressful times, may mix in some canned pure pumpkin, as he's been known to develop extremely soft/diarrhea-like stool when temps soar.

The results? Izzy's been on this diet for about a year, maybe a bit more, and I haven't had to deal with any digestive issues with him since then. He would often get 'gassy'...that no longer happens. His soft stool? Very very rare...I think he may have had it once in the past year and a bit, and may have been because he was stressed over fireworks. All of his poops now are smaller, firm, and consistent, and he goes once to twice a day.

I'd seriously look at diet if you're having soft stool issues, esp. if it's several times in a day, with your dog. It may take several dietary changes - always introduced slowly - before you hit on something that will agree with him.

*P.S. You can add the canned pumpkin to his kibble, but if the kibble is the source of the problem, then the pumpkin will only mask some of the symptoms. Best to try and get to the bottom of what's causing it in the first place.

And yes, oh I can relate to the 'trying to pick up soft stool in long grass' dilemma. Did that many many times...