Well, today we are going to make a shitty video.
We're going to talk about dog poop, because it's important so let's watch the video!
Everything about your pet
DOGS Feces or poop
Well, although it is a bit of a scatological issue, it's of vital importance.
That is: the shape, size, consistency, even color of poop is related to our dogs state of health.
It's a very important thing that we must control.
I'm going to give you some key visual advice on what an ideal poop should be like
and even what pathological problems we can detect simply by looking that should alarm us.
Size
If you see that suddenly the size or even the frequency of your dog pooping increases,
this means that it's likely that this food is not digested well.
Diets that are excessively fibrous or that are unbalanced in nutrients
are going to cause increasing size of the stool, in addition to a loss of the hardness, of the consistency.
So feces are much more abundant and softer, that contain more fiber
and are indicating that the diet is not the right one,
it's not balanced and probably contains excess of fiber.
Frequency
Although it's not specified how many times an animal has to defecate a day,
you know your animals well enough to know how often they defecate.
So increase in that frequency, when your dog makes more poops than normal,
means that the animal has diarrhea.
There are different types of diarrhea. If your dog poops more than normal there we have a problem.
Also on the contrary, if our animal doesn't defecate for one, two or three days we also have a problem.
Both diarrhea and constipation are digestive problems that can come from a diet that is not correct.
Consistency
The consistency of the stools.
On one hand too soft are marking a process of poor digestion,
of small intestine diarrhea often caused by parasites
or that dog has licked or eaten something improper or food in poor condition.
And it causes stools that are more frequent and softer.
On the other hand we also have an increase in hardness of the stools.
It can be caused by, among other things, a dehydration.
You need to distinguish if it's something regular.
If the animal makes soft stools or very hard ones in a specific way,
for example once a week or once every 15 days or once a month it's not very important.
On the contrary if it is something regular, if the animal usually does soft or excessively dry stools
that are not normal we probably have a problem.
We have to analyze very well dog's food source and other possibles pathological causes.
Color
Color of the feces. As you all know they must be a light, medium, dark brown color,
depending on of what the animal has eaten but basically brown.
All the colors that are not normal are going to indicate pathologies.
The color of the feces in the species is more or less the same
depending on the diet, of course.
Feed passes through the digestive tract and is colored with bile and by digestion.
As I said all species have a characteristic feces color.
If we talk about dogs, light or dark brown is a normal feces color.
Outside of those tones we enter into different pathologies that I'm going to list.
Feces that appear greenish.
We are going to distinguish between the greenish color in the feces of an adult dog
that could be caused by ingestion of vegetables and herbs, different plant-type food sources
that can make feces appear greenish or even have green color.
I've seen feed that had greenish pigments that made the stools appear a bit greenish.
But it's true that in puppies it's very typical that those greenish feces,
when they are accompanied by significant diarrhea are usually causes by parasites such as Giardia or Coccidia.
It's very important that if this continues over time or green stools appear accompanied by vomiting
or that the animal doesn't want to eat or show pain in the abdominal region,
then go to the vet and take samples of the stool, because your dog probably has a bacterial, parasitic or viral problem.
Another of the colors that should concern us is the blackish color of the feces
that can imply hidden blood.
When the blood in the digestive tract passes through the entire intestinal tract
at the end when it's defecated it has that blackish color.
The black color can be diagnosed through a fecal occult blood test
and it indicates problem with bleeding in digestive tract.
It's really important sign, because it implies that the animal has an ulcer
or some active bleeding in the digestive tract and those health disorders can be dangerous.
Another of the colors is the transparent, mucous color
or that half yellowish half whitish slime that appear in feces that also are less consistent than normal.
Indicates inflammatory bowel disease.
It may be due to parasites, it may be due to intolerances, it may be due to intoxications
because the animal has eaten something that it shouldn't.
In the digested material appear this mucosa that makes the animal also lose more water
And is usually accompanied by vomiting, dizziness or apathy of dog.
It's very important to go to the vet, because that poop is indicating a clear problem of bowel inflammation.
Another type of stools that should concern us are those reddish or bloody.
Basically, these are telling us that there is a problem with bleeding in the last sections of the intestine.
Those faces appear red because this blood has not been previously digested.
They may indicate poisoning, foreign bodies, polyps
or some tumors of the last section of the digestive system.
As I said poop may appear reddish in color, but basically, it's the color of blood that we all can identify.
Although in puppies we must be very careful with parvovirus.
This virus is very contagious and affects a lot of dogs in their first stages of life
mostly dogs that are not fully vaccinated
and parvovirus causes diarrhea with bloody stools.
Dogs that are severely constipated undergo a process that we veterinarians call dyschezia.
They can't defecate and those efforts to defecate sometimes are so great,
that the poops are accompanied by traces of blood.
In both cases, or whenever the blood appears in the feces it's very important to go to the vet.
Well, another color that should concern us is when in the normal brown stools
appear white dots or white spots.
Normally this white spots are adult forms of some parasites.
So whenever you see white dots or similar to grains of rice white spots
or even small, white worms it's very very important to deworm an animal.
And finally I'm going to talk about whitish, white even grayish stools.
These may lack a little bit of color.
We must differentiate two types within these.
These that are very hard and brittle appear typically in dogs that eat bones.
These faeces contain bone remains, traces of calcium and are very very brittle, very whitish
and normally are associated with constipation and it's difficult for the animal to defecate them.
That's why I want to emphasize that you must be very careful when feeding bones to dogs.
You have to be careful, some animals can tolerate bones and can eat them
and in other animals bones can cause a very serious digestive problem.
And there are also other stools that we call whitish that don't have color, even grey one.
These stools indicate mainly liver problem, a gallbladder problem, a digestive problem.
These stools indicate, as I said, a digestive problem, mainly at the level of the gallbladder, liver.
Whenever a poop is not the color it should be, we should be alarmed,
we should be vigilant and we should ask our veterinarian.
Cuniadvice
Therefore my advice for this video is that although it can be a bit disgusting
when you take your dog for a walk and pick up its poop
from now on you have to pay attention to its size, shape, color and consistency.
I know it's a bit disgusting, but it must be done because it may indicate health problems.