Why Your Dog May Have Diarrhea

Have you noticed that your dog is squirting like a hose lately? If your dog has diarrhea, or even less firm stools than they normally do, you can easily find out the culprit and find relief for your dog.

Often, a dog has diarrhea because they’ve gotten into “people” food and their body is reacting to it. If your dog got into the garbage yesterday and chomped down a bag of old coffee grounds, odds are they’ve been gurgling in the belly all night and have now left poop puddles all over your yard. If your dog has been expressing an ample need to go out and potty and is squatting often with a few diarrhea squirts at every stop, try to think of what food items your dog got into that they shouldn’t have. My dog ate an entire loaf of bread when I was gone running errands once and had the squirts for about 36 hours afterward.

You can usually tell your dog has diarrhea before they actually go to the restroom. They will typically bloat and have a lot of smelly gas, consume a lot of water and pace a lot due to stomach distress. Then they begin whining to go outdoors and want to go out often.

Another diarrhea culprit is a change in your dog’s diet. Even switching to another flavor of the same brand of dog food can impact their sensitive digestion. Have you recently begun adding wet food to their diet? Changed their dog food brand, or went to another style of their regular brand? If so, dogs may have diarrhea for a few days until their bodies get used to it.

Diarrhea to food switching is typically not as severe as diarrhea caused by consuming products your dog should not have. Changes in food usually result in less solid stools rather than full-blown diarrhea, and often cause gurgling in the belly but no gas.

Now, if your dog is producing watery stools with blood in them, or they are grey or light-ish yellow or grey-green in appearance, or if you notice a chemical or mucous look or smell in your dog’s feces, you should call the vet to rule out a serious health problem like poisoning, Parvo, worms, or organ issues. If your dog has diarrhea and is also lethargic, has runny eyes or nose, is not eating or drinking water, or is unresponsive to normal stimulation (like when you come home, or when you offer them a treat), get your dog to a vet ASAP. Your dog could be seriously ill.

While many diarrhea issues are simply just an oops in diet, some diarrhea problems can be severe or even fatal. If for any reason you notice your dog not acting normal, or you can find no reason for their diarrhea issues, absolutely call a vet. Otherwise, if your dog has mild or even very runny diarrhea and you know they’ve been eating some “non” dog food products (even excess portions of meat can cause the runs in dogs) then you should be without issue in a few days provided you get them back on a proper diet.