When your fur baby has diarrhea, it’s harder to treat since they can’t tell you what’s causing it.

Dr. Harvey’s wants to help you determine the problem through this detailed guide. You’ll learn much about your dog’s health from their bowel movements and understand various dog diarrhea home remedies.

What Causes Diarrhea in Dogs?

Dogs develop diarrhea for many reasons:

Stress

It’s amazing how stress can affect a dog’s body in many ways—digestive issues included. Stress can come from changing environments, new people in the house, or even when you’re away from home for long periods.

Allergies/Intolerance

After eating foods to which they're allergic or intolerant, they can commonly cause stomach pain and diarrhea.

If you think your companion is potentially allergic to a specific food, look for additional symptoms like:

• Sneezing
• Abdominal bloating
• Gas
• Runny eyes
• Itchy ears
• Constant licking and chewing on paws
• Increased itching and scratching
• Irritated/red skin

Change in Diet

Dogs’ digestive systems don’t always do well with sudden changes, and can sometimes cause diarrhea when switching from one type of food to another. Change your dog’s diet slowly to avoid the effects of diarrhea. Mix a little bit of the new food with the old, and add more daily.

Parasites

Giardia and Coccidia are organisms that attach themselves to the intestinal wall; they’re parasites but not worms. These parasites can affect how the stool looks, but there won’t be an obvious presence in the stool like with worms. Check with your veterinarian for a stool check to rule out parasites or worms.

Illness

Different illnesses can also cause digestive upset. If you notice that your dog is suffering from a lack of appetite, fever, and fatigue, or chronic loose stools, you’ll want to take them to your holistic vet as soon as possible.

How Do I Know If My Dog’s Stool Is Abnormal?

Now that we’ve discussed causes, it’s time to talk about the appearance of your furry friend’s poop. Learning the basics of stool appearance can teach you when your best friend needs help.

When you’re concerned that your dog is sick, look at their stool’s color, consistency, coating, and content.

Color/Consistency

How your dog’s stool looks and feels can tell you a lot about its health status. Most healthy stool can be varying degrees of earth tone colors. Seek veterinary assistance if your dog’s poop seems black/tarry or dramatically shifts in color from your pup’s norm.

Hard stool may mean your pup is slightly constipated or dehydrated, whereas loose/runny stool indicates diarrhea.

Coating

Healthy poop shouldn't have any coating. If your dog’s stool has mucus, it could be a sign of inflammation due to stomach problems, such as IBD, IBS, parasites, or colitis. It could also signify food allergies or changing a diet too quickly.

Worms

Some parasites can be visible to the naked eye in stool and look similar to rice or spaghetti, oftentimes moving.

Fur

If there’s visible fur in your dog’s stool, that can mean overgrooming is occurring. Overgrooming is a coping mechanism for allergies or stress.

Foreign Objects

If you notice something that shouldn’t be in your dog’s stool, like clothing, bits of plastic from toys, or grass, there could be objects stuck in the digestive tract. If you notice your dog is acting differently, then they may have an obstruction and should seek medical attention.

Natural Dog Diarrhea Home Remedies

Here are a few dog home remedies for diarrhea that you can do from the comfort of your home. Keeping your best friend relatively stress-free (easier said than done when they don’t feel well) is an essential part of their recovery. There’s nothing more comforting than being home.

Fasting

While it may seem cruel to not feed your fur baby for 12 to 24 hours, it helps with their diarrhea. Fasting allows the stomach to calm down and may help eliminate that which is causing the upset stomach.

Food

You can also battle diarrhea by providing the right food types. Nutritious but bland food is crucial for diarrhea recovery. It’s even better to mix it into a slurry for easier digestion.

Food that may help solve diarrhea problems are:

• Dr. Harvey’s Canine Health base mix
• Pumpkin
• Plain yogurt
• Boiled potatoes
• Cottage cheese
• Eggs
• Skinless chicken
• Broths
• Rice
• Banana

Feed your dog this bland diet for a few days and when you feel ready, slowly introduce Dr. Harvey’s base mixes as part of their daily diet.

Fluids

Diarrhea can dehydrate your dog quickly, so ensuring they have water access is vital for recovery. If your dog isn’t interested in water, try adding some chicken or beef bone broth to the water to get fluids in them.

Supplements

Natural dog digestive supplements can help speed up diarrhea recovery. You can use herbs like the following:

• Dr. Harvey’s Runs Be Done organic whole food herbal supplement
• Fennel
• Slippery elm
• L-glutamine
• Marshmallow root

Dr. Harvey’s knows the importance of digestive supplements for dogs. They created a digestive supplement, Runs Be Done, that uses pumpkin, slippery elm, bentonite clay, marshmallow root, fennel, apple pectin and more for digestive assistance and long-term support.

Probiotics

Probiotics are an excellent addition to your dog’s diet, whether or not they’re having stomach problems. These helpful bacteria can improve and strengthen various bodily functions like digestion. Dr. Harvey’s Raw Vibrance base mix contains raw goats milk powder probiotic. In addition, Dr Harvey’s complete foods - Healthy Weight, Garden Veggies, and Allergy - contain both pre- and pro-biotics.

Use Runs Be Done to Help Stop Diarrhea

Dr. Harvey’s understands that pet parents want a quick and easy solution when their fur baby isn’t feeling well, so they created Runs Be Done. This powder uses all the best whole food ingredients, herbs, and minerals and can help stop diarrhea while keeping your pup healthy.

It’s not just a good diarrhea recovery tool but a long-term dog digestion supplement as well. If your buddy has consistent digestive problems, add this to their regimen and see the difference.

Contact our team of nutrition experts if you have any questions about Runs Be Done or overall digestive health.

Here at Dr. Harveys we offer trial sizes of all of our foods. If you are interested, click here.