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  1. #1
    Senior Dog Georgia's Avatar
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    Possible Food Change

    Sam has been on the food his breeder feeds all his life. He's had a bag or two of different protein but I mostly feed him chicken based food. I think he does good on it. He never throws up or has diarrhea. His coat and skin are healthy. There's just one thing that he has going on that makes me wonder if it's food related. He is a butt scooter. There was a time in the fall/winter where I was taking him to get his anal glands expressed every month. Things seemed better for a while until last week when he started dragging his butt again. I took him to the vet this morning and she expressed his anal glands. She said they were full but not impacted. It makes me wonder if a different food could help or if this is just a problem he has and what I feed him wouldn't matter. If I change his food how would I know what brand to switch to. What would I look for in a new food? Would I do a different protein? I'm open to suggestions.
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  2. #2
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    I have heard using a small amount of Metamucil (sp?) sprinkled on the food adds fibre which may help bulk/firm up his stool enough to help with the anal gland problem. You could also add some raw meaty bones like turkey necks to help.
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  3. #3
    Senior Dog Georgia's Avatar
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    I've heard the Metamucil thing too. The thing is he has somewhat hard stool as it is. I don't want the poor boy to poop rocks! I have never fed a raw turkey neck before. Is it ok to feed a kibble fed dog raw?
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  4. #4
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    My 2 are also kibble fed but raw, frozen turkey necks are probably their favorite treats, lol!

    If he already has well formed poo that is obviously not the issue. I am at a loss as to further help, so sorry! Hopefully someone here will have some better suggestions for you.
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  5. #5
    House Broken LuckyLuna's Avatar
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    I've found that feeding a kibble with a little bit higher fiber percentage can improve the anal gland problem. For example, if your dog's current food has 3.5% fiber, you may want to try a kibble with 5% fiber.

  6. #6
    Senior Dog Nancy0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Georgia View Post
    I've heard the Metamucil thing too. The thing is he has somewhat hard stool as it is. I don't want the poor boy to poop rocks! I have never fed a raw turkey neck before. Is it ok to feed a kibble fed dog raw?
    The metamucil won't make the poop harder actually it makes it softer if his poops are ktoo hard. Not squishy gross still easy to pick up. Niner has off and on poop issues so for awhile i was using it with him. Run it by the vet first. I bought the metamucil capsules from costco. They dont have anything except the psyllium husk fiber in them

  7. #7
    Senior Dog Georgia's Avatar
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    The vet did mention Metamucil. She also said green beans would add fiber. Sam does get a can of green beans a day as part of his weight loss program. I double checked the fiber in his kibble. It is 4.5% which seems a bit higher than most. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try Metamucil. I looked one time at Metamucil back in the Fall but all I saw was the orange flavor. I didn't think about pills. The weird thing is that Sam hardly ever has runny poop. For the most part, he has normal easy to pick up turds. So sorry for the visual! I just don't get why he has anal gland issues.
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  8. #8
    Senior Dog BeataK's Avatar
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    If his poos are fine then I think changing food won't make much difference. We had problems with Barney's anal glands - he needed them done every 3 weeks and they were getting infected quite often. We tried different foods, meds, oat bran etc. Finally we decided to remove them & that was the best decision we could make.

  9. #9
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    Let the dog chew on a raw bone, that helps sometimes too.

 



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