Warning: I’m going to talk about poop. Okay, this is nothing new. Courtney and I talk about poop all the time in the Pets Blog. It’s just part of being a pet owner.
Now that you’ve been fairly warned… on to the poop!
My dog Moose is usually quite the pooper. That dog can squat a good four times per day, if not more. (He’s not quite the level of pooper that my dog Miko used to be — that dog had an uncanny ability to poop one more time than I had bags with me. If I had one, he’d poop twice. If I had two, he’d poop three times. Seriously.)
But for the last week or so, Moose has only been pooping once per day. One day, he didn’t poop at all. For Moose, this is NOT normal behavior.
I’m concerned. Is it some kind of nerve degeneration or delayed damage from last year’s car accident? Did he eat something weird that turned into a blockage in his intestines?
He’s been chowing down on grass more than usual — grass and other greens are a good way to help keep an animal’s digestive system regular. Grass can firm things up when they’re soft and loosen things when they’re tight. It’s the great balancer! And at the risk of sharing too much, the grass is coming out the other end.
Then I started to wonder about the dog food. Could they have changed the recipe? Maybe there’s less fiber pushing things through the digestive system.
At the cats-only boarding facility, when a cat is on poop strike, we add one-eighth of a teaspoon of Metamucil to some wet food for them. That usually gets things moving again. As far as I know, a similar treatment would have the same effect on a dog. Might need to adjust the dose, though, since Moose is closer to a hundred pounds than to ten pounds.
And if the poop strike continues? It never hurts to make a quick call to the veterinarian. My vet is pretty good about telling me “yes, this is an emergency” or “no, you can take care of this at home.”