SUBWAY’S CORNER
DOG DIARRHEA DISMISSED
Greetings, feline friends and faithful human companions! It’s your favorite cat wordsmith here — back from a brief hiatus and ready to walk across the keyboard to form the words you’re about to read on a very important issue you need to know about! Besides being fantastic companions (in my ever-modest opinion), we cats are stoic animals who tend to hide our pain. Because we’re not big complainers, our humans may not realize we’re experiencing intense pain in our mouths due to “tooth resorption.” I’ll spare you some of the gory details, but it’s essentially when a cat’s body resorbs one or more of their teeth. The condition has no definitive cause, but it’s extremely uncomfortable for us. The signs of tooth resorption are easy for humans to spot. Your cat may have a hole in the enamel of one or more teeth, chew on only one side of their mouth, or swallow food without chewing it first. Oh, and they may also drool — a lot . If you try to touch the affected area, you’ll likely see our jaws chatter in pain. If you notice any of these signs, get your cat to Petersen Pet Hospital pronto! Hospital staff will put them under anesthesia, take X-rays, and see whether the bone under the tooth is going away. In a lot of cases, the tooth (or teeth) will need to be pulled. If that happens, fear not — your cat will feel amazing afterward! I can’t begin to tell you how bad tooth resorption feels, so I say, “Be gone, tooth!” Spotting Pain in Stoic Cats
A Dynamic Diet for Digestion
Studies show that 20%–30% of veterinary visits involve dogs presenting with diarrhea as the primary concern. Diarrhea can be mild to severe and has many causes. Sometimes, the primary cause is as simple as the dog eating something it shouldn’t — like garbage, “people food,” or something outside. Some dogs may have intestinal parasites, or the diarrhea may be secondary to a more serious situation like pancreatitis or inflammatory bowel disease. If your dog has a simple case of diarrhea secondary to stress, a dietary indiscretion, or another short-term concern, you can often get things back on track with supportive care. Hill’s Science Diet has created a formulated diet called GI Biome, specifically designed to help firm up loose stool in 24 hours
and reduce the risk of recurrence. This food is high in fiber and has prebiotics and probiotics to help
activate the gastrointestinal tract’s normal microbiome (the good bacteria). This food — which replaces the need for a separate antidiarrheal, a fiber supplement, and a probiotic — can be used for short-term or long-term diarrhea. For example, Cooper is a 20-week-old Australian Labradoodle puppy who ate things outside and disrupted the fairy
Cooper
garden. After he presented with diarrhea and an exam showed no other concerns, we started administering the GI Biome food in the short term, which resolved his diarrhea. Bingo, on the other hand, is a 3-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi who presented for coughing, although his guardian commented that he also had chronic soft stool. After Bingo’s exam, his guardian started mixing some of the GI Biome into his regular food, and his stools were formed for the first time in his life.
Bingo
Some dogs are good candidates for a food switch to GI Biome, but others need a more comprehensive work- up to investigate the underlying causes of their diarrhea. If your dog has diarrhea, call us to help guide you through the recommendations.
—Dr. Sarah Young
Contact us! 319-743-0554
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