What is the best dog food for diarrhoea?

As disgusting as it is, your dog’s poop can tell you a lot about their health.

We all know what it’s like having a curious canine who is constantly on the prowl for the next thing to steal, chew and devour. However, lots of the things they pick up can often cause stomach problems and short bouts of diarrhoea. However, what should you do when the diarrhoea is nonstop?

Constant runny stools are a tell-tale sign that somethings going wrong on the inside, so you need to find a food that nourishes your pup from the inside out to combat the dreaded diarrhoea. Not only is diarrhoea really unpleasant for your pooch, but it’s definitely pretty unpleasant for you as the owner too, so it needs to be solved.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you and your pooch are in need of help, and fast. Let’s delve deeper into what the best dog food for diarrhoea is so you can get your pup’s tum feeling settled and satisfied.

How can my dog's diet help manage chronic diarrhoea?

Diarrhoea can be caused by many things, such as various medical problems, parasites, infections and more. However, many cases of the runs are actually related to your dog’s diet. So, when treating your dog’s dicky tum, the first step is to take a look at what’s actually going into it.

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Your dog’s dinners might actually be the prime cause of the constant diarrhoea, and just by simply switching up their diet, that smelly problem might be gone for good. Switch to a highly-digestible dog food that is filled with simple, natural ingredients to give the gut and digestive system a rest and then you’ll be well on your way.

What to do when your dog has diarrhoea

Fasting

If your dog is suffering with diarrhoea, consult your vet for advice and see if you can work out what the problem is. If it’s happening constantly, it’s a reasonable assumption that it’s down to your dog’s dinners. 

However, whether your dog has only had one short episode of diarrhoea or whether it’s happening constantly, the first step is always the same, don’t give your dog any more food.

Hold off from any food at all for around 12 hours (this is only applicable for adult dogs that are otherwise healthy, don’t do this with puppies unless told to do so by the vet).

Fasting means that your dog’s digestive system won’t have to worry about digesting any of your dog’s dinners for a little while, so it can rest and recover in the meantime. We know this will be tricky if your dog is a bit of a greedy guts like a Lab, they’re a breed known to never willingly miss a meal!

After 12 hours, your dog needs to eat something really bland, and most vets recommend feeding small portions of plain, boiled/poached chicken or white fish combined with boiled white rice for a few days. This is easy to digest, the white rice helps to bind the stools and your dog will probably be super excited to get some juicy chunks of chicken for dinner.

Once your dog’s stools appear to be going back to normal, now’s the time to start a steady transition onto a nutritious, balanced dog food that soothes their stomach and helps to prevent the problem from reoccurring. It also needs to be taste delicious, smell scrumptious and just be all-round appealing to your poorly pooch, as they might have been put off food all together following their sickness.

So, let’s go ahead and find out what the best dog food for diarrhoea is.

What's the best dog food for diarrhoea?

The best dog food for diarrhoea will be easy for your dog to digest, contain super simple (but still tasty) ingredients and be packed with antioxidants to boost the immune system.

Filled with fibre

Fibre is essential in your dog’s dinners, especially if they’re suffering from diarrhoea. Fibre is packed into fruit, veg and wholegrains such as brown rice, and your dog’s dinners need to keep the fibre levels balanced. If your dog’s got diarrhoea, they need more fibre to firm up stools, but if they’ve got white, hard stools and constipation, it’s possible that they’re getting too much fibre. As we said, your dog’s stools really do tell you a lot!

Highly digestible diets, paired with fibrous ingredients work to leave a lot less liquid within the gastrointestinal tract, helping make your dog’s stools firmer if they’ve got diarrhoea.

With ingredients such as apple, carrot, peas and brown rice, our Pure recipes  ensure your dog’s fibre levels are always balanced and stable, promising good gut and digestive health. Don’t worry though if your dog is sensitive to grains, just let us know before ordering and we’ll create a grain-free recipe perfect for your pooch. It’ll still be filled with fibre from all those fruit and veggies, perfect for firming up stools and eradicating any signs of diarrhoea.

Simple, natural and nutritious

When it comes to choosing the best food for your dog with a poorly tum and diarrhoea, you need to keep things simple. Have a peek at the back of the dog food packet, do you recognise all the ingredients listed? If not, it might be a good idea to put that food back on the shelf.

Instead, you need to be looking for a limited, recognisable ingredient list, because if you don’t know what’s going into your dog’s dinners, then you won’t be able to figure what’s causing the problem. Dogs with sensitive stomachs needs restricted meals that are still super delicious and nutritious. Look for recipes that state exactly what ingredients are in it, especially so when it comes to the protein source.

Make sure your dog’s food includes real meat that’s labelled as ‘turkey’, ‘duck’, or ‘salmon’ for example, you don’t want any ‘animal derivatives’. This can basically include a whole load of protein sources that come from the not so nice parts of various different animals, so you don’t really know what’s going on in there. As a result, these proteins with unknown origins can be causing a flare up of diarrhoea.

Real, high-quality ingredients are what your dog needs, so make sure you avoid artificial additives and flavourings as again, you don’t really know what these are there for!

Here at Pure, we pack our recipes with real meat, fruit and veggies along with a blend of vitamins and minerals to make complete and balanced meals. Nothing nasty, no cheap fillers and of course no chemically-fuelled additives that’ll upset your dog’s poorly tum even more, Pure is just the good, honest food your dog needs.

We include gut-friendly ingredients like natural prebiotic chicory root and omega 3, which promote healthy digestion by stopping the nasty, bad bacteria from attaching itself to the gut, keeping the digestive process stable.

Don't give the stomach extra work

One of the hardest things for your dog to stomach and digest is fat, so the best dog food you can choose for your dog suffering from diarrhoea is one with moderate to low fat content. Too much fat can also lead to pancreatitis, which is a very serious illness that you want to prevent at all costs.

Stick to a low-fat dog food to keep things easy on your dog’s already sensitive stomach, and a low-fat content will also help prevent your pooch from piling on the pounds.

Pure includes low-fat, healthy recipes, perfect for a dog suffering with a sensitive tum. We’ll ensure our fat content is low, but still balanced with the perfect amount of good, healthy fats to sustain your dog’s energy and keep everything healthy on the inside.

Away with allergies

It’s surprisingly common how much of the canine population suffer from a food allergy of some sort, and one of the ways an allergy can present itself is through diarrhoea. Therefore, you need to try and figure out what is causing the allergy, and once you have got that all worked out, you can omit it from your dog’s food.

This is where a tailored diet comes in handy. At Pure, we curate recipes perfect for your pooch, in line with their details such as age, weight, breed and any allergies and ailments. We’ll remove any allergens you listed from your dog’s recipe, along with keeping our ingredient list minimal and deliciously simple, as to not risk any more upset stomachs.

A menu of restricted, but still delicious recipes will be the easiest way to tackle bad bellies caused by allergies, as it’ll be way easier to eliminate the culprit. Long, sketchy ingredient lists are often at the forefront of diarrhoea.

Various protein sources can also often be an allergen for some dogs, such as chicken, so it’s best to go with foods that have a single protein source to easily avoid allergies from certain proteins.

Some of our recipes also include brown rice as this is a great source of dietary fibre, but if you know your pooch’s tummy is a little sensitive to grains, we’ll get some recipes whipped right up that are grain-free. We’ve got something for everyone!

How to transition your dog onto new food

As with anything, a transition should be a transition, and that means things need to be taken slowly. Since your pup already has a poorly tummy, you don’t want to throw something new into their diet all at once, as this could just makes things worse, no matter how good the food is for a sensitive stomach.

As stated, go through a fasting period with your dog, and then find them a bland diet of just boiled chicken or white fish and boiled white rice for a few days until things start to go back to business as usual in the toilet department.  

Then, you want to start slowly adding the new food (of course, we’d really recommend Pure!) over the course of a week into the chicken and rice mix. As the days go on, increase the amount of Pure and decrease the amount of chicken and rice until you’ve fully phased out their bland food and fully transitioned your dog onto Pure.

And voila! Your dog is well on their way to saying bye bye to their bad belly and hello to a happy tummy, making it much more pleasant for you when you step out into the garden!

Recap

So, as a quick roundup, the best dog food for diarrhoea is one that’s easily digestible, low in fat and packed with all that good stuff you’d eat yourself, meat, fruit and loads of vibrant veggies. With dinners like this, your dog will be feeling better in no time, with a spring in their step and a nonstop waggy tail.