Poor little bugger, another phone call to the vets and they said put him on rice and chicken to settle his stomach. A day of rice and chicken later… Problem solved.

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At this point I was starting to get suspicious that the diarrhoea was nothing to do with the parasite and maybe something to do with the food. We spoke to the breeder and he recommended soaking the kibble in boiling hot water, letting it cool then giving it to him as it would be easier for him to digest. 

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Gradually we weaned him off the chicken and rice and back onto the Royal Canin, a few days went by and his poo started going a bit downhill again until BAM, diarrhoea all over the floor again. 

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It was so horrible to see because he was fine in himself otherwise and from day 1 he never ever pooed in the house, but he ended up having 3 bouts of diarrhoea inside, 1 in the middle of the kitchen and 2 in his crate at night. Every time he was so upset that it had happened inside, both times that it happened in his crate he was dead silent all night and when he did finally cry he wouldn’t even look at us when we came down. It was so sad to see as it was like he knew he’d been naughty, even though we knew he couldn’t help it. 

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Anyway, at this point I was pretty confident that it was the food that was the issue and I tentatively put out a post on a Golden Retriever page on Facebook. After re reading my post several times before I posted to try and avoid any insults or patronising comments from the ‘holier than thou I am the Queen of Golden Retriever types’ I finally sucked up the courage to post it. To be fair, the response was amazing. 

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Basically I found out that the main things that Golden Retrievers and I guess other breeds are sensitive to, are chicken, wheat and grain- all of which were in his food. 

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A lot of people were recommending a raw diet to me, but it wasn’t a route that I was really keen to go down unless really necessary. A trainer had said to us to make sure we put him on a 80% protein food and a high quality one at that. Larger breed dogs are renown for hip and joint problems, so paying the bit extra on the food could save a lot more in the long run. 

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I did a lot of research and ended up on www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk. A price and quality comparison site for dog food. After looking at the various different brands I finally decided on Orijen. It ticked the box of been grain free and high in protein. 

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Armed with my newly found dog food knowledge I went to my local pet store to buy a pack. Speaking to the lady in the store, I was telling her about Cooper’s stomach issues and asked her about Orijen. She asked me 2 things…

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1. Have you been doing your research?

2. Is it okay if I give you some advice?

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Yes and yes. 

The first question was purely out of her own interest because she said no one asks for Orijen unless they’ve been researching online. She did confirm everything I read, she said it is the rolls royce of dog food. However, then came her advice. To keep with the car metaphor, she said, Royal Canin is like a 1 litre ford fiesta, would you let someone who’s just passed their test in a Fiesta drive your 6 litre Rolls Royce? No, probably not. This again isn't a reflection on the quality of Royal Canin, just the percentage of protein in the food.

 

Instead she recommended an in-between food so as not to overwhelm Cooper’s system. She recommended a brand called Mcadams. A brief overview of the history of the brand was that (and this is what I was told, so don’t shoot the messenger if I’m wrong!), but the guy who invented Mcadams had a dog with a really sensitive stomach, and he was so fed up of changing foods to try and find one that worked for his dog, that he ended up making his own. He found that it wasn’t necessarily the chicken that upset a dogs stomach, but more the grains and chemicals that the chickens were fed prior to been killed. Anyway, he started making this food, then his friends started to ask him to make it for their dogs, and then it snowballed…

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But history lesson over, I took the lady’s advice and went for the Mcadams. Cooper went crazy for it as soon as he smelt it…but nothing new there, you could offer him a dirty sock and he’d think it was the best thing ever. BUT, 2 days on this food and VOILA. No more poo problems. 

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I didn’t think I’d ever type that I was excited by poo, but I was! It was such a nice feeling not to have to go out in the garden to deal with a Mr. Whippy special on the lawn which involved a poo bag, a pooper scooper and a saucepan of water to clear it up. Now it was just solid logs that were picked up without leaving any trace.

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I know this blog post may be a bit overshare, and I’m not saying Royal Canin is a bad food or anything like that because every dog is going to have different tolerance levels to different things, but I really wasn’t expecting so much trouble from something so basic as food. My Dad’s dog is like a dustbin, he eats all sorts and very rarely gets ill from it, so I had no idea how common it was. 

When I posted on Facebook I had over 80 replies of people in the same boat within 5 hours. It was reassuring to know I wasn’t the only one having the issue. 

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All I’d say is, if your dog's poo isn’t coming out in solid (ish) logs, and is difficult to pick up, then maybe look at a food change. My friend’s pup who is a few weeks older than Cooper was having the same issue, but they assumed that the poo was normal. When they saw the difference they were shocked and took a trip straight down to the pet shop to buy new food! 

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*Note: If you do decide to switch foods, make sure you change the food gradually over a minimum of 4-5 days, start off with 1/4 new food, 3/4 old food, then 1/2 and 1/2, then 3/4 and 1/4, then on the full switch.