A question about Vizslas and their digestion habits: how many here found or are finding that their puppies struggle a bit from time to time with proper digestion?

Osha has had some difficulties from day one with food. Food going in is not a problem as she loves to eat. It's the food coming out that seems to crop up as an issue.

She is just over 5 months now and has had occasional diarrhea or loose stools.

Originally, it was when we switched her food over from the stuff our breeder fed to her new diet so that made sense.

Then after that was fixed up she seemed to struggle with constipation so we filled her food with water and that clearerd that up.

Through all this our vet has been kept up to date and he gave us some healthy flora for her stomach in the form of a daily pill. But even so, sometimes O's daily deliveries seem normal at first and then they end up quite loose.

This week it has been mostly diarrhea for 3 days. I say mostly b/c that's not the case across the board. Last night she got only rice for dinner and we'll be taking her back to the vet tonight.

In the meantime, I'm wondering if this problem is similar to anyone else's on the board. I know some of you have dealt with this issue but I cannot remember if it was due to switching foods or not.

We are also going to get her some pumpkin to see if that helps. I know some Vs have challenges with
tummy issues. For those who have been through this or s'thing similar, what were your findings?

I have been able to trend Savannah fairly effectively, so (knock on wood) prevention is the key for us.

The kong treats that get put into the kong toys always cause problems, so we stopped those and stuff her kong with other tasty things. Treats with sweat potato always help, so we have some small pieces of those (currently Natural Balance Health Bones) every single day. I also treat with ice cubes every day, especially in the evening. Anytime she eats cloth (usually from a destroyed stuffed toy), she will start firm and end runny, so I anticipate an extended potty session anytime I see toy scraps. If I wait for a few minutes after she thinks she has finished, she has the second act, so to speak.

I suppose other facts that might be relevant are that I treat frequently, but minimally (less than fingertip sized treats given multiple times over the course of the day and evening). Anytime she gets a new kind of treat, I watch for the results. I feed IAMS mixed with a handful of Natural Balance and a tablespoon of Nutro canned puppy food twice a day, but when she doesn’t finish breakfast, she gets the leftovers as a snack at lunchtime. She cleans her bowl at suppertime.

With all that said, so far, we haven’t had to deal with any of the more serious issues that have been discussed in other threads. I hope Osha’s issues are able to be trended and prevented as well.

We have had tummy troubles since a week after we picked Holley up from the breeder. It started out as diarrhea and we had her on boiled beef and rice. Then the vet gave us dewormer just in case as well as an antobiotic. Holley seemed okay for a bit after this. Then she moved onto an issue that we are still dealing with and have no explaination at this time. We had had several call and visits to the vet as well for this. Holley will start out okay with her business but then she will start pushing very hard and this leads to loose stool followed by drops of blood. We added pumpkin to her food because the vet felt this was a fiber issue. Holley started doing better. Then we noticed it again so the vet had us only feed her food with pumpkin and boiled chicken for treats. She is still on this diet at this time.

Thanks for the responses. We could not get in to the vet unfortunately.

I should mention that this past weekend when the problem began, we stopped giving her any kinds of treats whatsoever. She has only been eating her dog food and rice (and sticks). I am wondering if the sticks could be the culprit here. She is sort of obsessed with sticks and leaves and it's pretty hard to keep them out of her mouth when we go outside, but I'm trying. She is now eating pumpkin with her meals as of this evening. The vet suspects she is allergic to chicken so she can't have any of that. Maybe boiled beef would work...

The starting firm/ending runny is something we have experienced, as well as the excessive pushing. We have not seen any blood but I was worried about it since it seemed like it was such a huge effort for her to go.

I was talking to someone at the dog park tonight and she mentioned that her puppy had been on Orijen (what we've been feeding Osha for the past 3 months) too. She said that her puppy was having the same issues until she switched to Acana. Maybe it's just too much protein?

JillandDan - what food are you feeding Holley?

Jld640 - thanks, we hope so too

We have tried several foods with Holley to see if any made a difference. When we got her from the breeder, she was on Iams. We switched her to Wellness to see if that helped the issue. It didn't and she became very gassy. We tried both flavors of Blue Buffalo and still no change. She is now on Nutro Natural. He stool is usually pretty good as long as she had the pumpkin mixed in but she has some random nights where she will still push. The vet thinks it may be puppy colitis and is hoping she grows out of it. We are hoping that as well. The vet also stated that when Holley is of age to switch to adult food she will look for food that is higher in fiber since there aren't really and puppy foods that have this. But we still have the issue of treats. We can only give the boiled chicken and this gets expensive as well as time consuming (especially since she is in obedience class).
As for the sticks and all, we go through that with Holley. She loves mulch. We are constantly pulling it out of her mouth. It can cause tears while passing so we try to get everything out before she can swallow it.

So sorry to hear that Holley might have colitis what does that mean longterm - just adhereing to the feeding plan she's on now?

Thanks for the info on mulch. I didn't think it was part of a healthy diet or anything but I was unaware that it could cause that much damage. What is it with Vizslas and mulch? Osha loves the stuff and I'm constantly taking it out of her mouth.

We are starting to think that maybe the Orijen is causing the diarrhea. We might slowwwwly switch over to the Acana and hopefully that will do the trick.

In the meantime, the pumpkin is helping a bit.

The vet is hoping that it is just puppy colitis which is something that they grow out of. In the meantime, we just stick to her food mixed with 1/4 cup of pumpkin and boiled chicken for treats. Hopefully in a few months we will be able to say that she is all better and that it was just a part of the growing pains.
The mulch may not always cause damage but we were told that anything like that has the possibility of causing tears on the way out. We don't need help with blood coming from there so we always remove it asap. I am not sure why they love it so much. I guess because we always try to take it away from them. Haha.
What we were told is that food with high levels of protein can cause loose stool. Any most of the high quality foods do have this. That is why we are mixing the pumpkin (fiber) to try to adjust this. Good luck with the transition and keep in mind that this can cause some loose stool as well even though you are gradually switching.
Glad to hear that pumpkin is helping. The vet just said to make sure we only use a 1/4 cup as too much can have the same effect (very loose stool).

Well sending big hugs to Holley and hope she grows out of it! I feel so badly to see puppies struggling with this kind of thing.

Good advice on the pumpkin. We have only been giving her 10%, not a quarter cup. I think we will up it a bit and see if that does the trick since we like the Orijen for it's quality and Osha likes eating it. Plus, switching foods is never fun.

Thank you very much. Holley has never shown any signs of it hurting her or anything. She is still just a happy, crazy V puppy. We just hate to see this happening. We are hoping to find a better solution soon.
If you found a food Osha loves, I would stick to it as well and just try to make adjustments. We have yet to find a food Holley loves. The breeder had her on Iams. Sine we have had her, we have tried the following per the vet's advise: Wellness, Blue Buffalo (all flavors), and now Nutro (all flavors). She isn't crazy about anything. We stopped switching though until we figure out her tummy issue. She eats when she is hungry. The vet told us to just leave her food in her crate for her. She stated that sometimes Vs just don't like set meals. I am hoping once she can be on adult food (3 months) we will find something she loves.

We've only switched a couple times since we brought Osha home. We got her off the stuff that our breeder was feeding her and put her on Orijen but it had chicken in it and we and our vet decided she might be allergic to chicken. So we switched to Orijen's Regional Red which she is on now.

We have not had a problem with her eating anything at all so I don't know that she would care if we changed her food but it can create more tummy issues like you mentioned. So we will add more pumpkin and see how it goes. In the meantime there seems to be some improvement so keeping our fingers crossed....