Dark loose stools a concern?

Cain's rear end has always been sporadic at best, plaugued by loose stools, I think he inherited the sensitive GSD tum. On kibble he regularly has loose bright yellow stools. Since switching to raw it has improved, although he still gets random loose stools for no reason I can fathom. About 5/6 weeks ago he went through a faze of having quite a lot of loose stools so I kept a food diary but could find no really pattern except too much green tripe upset him so I cut sown on that. For the last month he's been producing perfect poos 95% of the time. However he has had loose stools for the last few days and any formed ones have only been partially formed along with loose liquid.

What's concerning me is that there stools are dark brown in colour, where as his loose stools are usually bright yellow. However the vet said that yellow indicates and infection so perhaps it's better that they are not yellow??? To describe them (sorry!) it's not like water, but the consistency of a runny batter mix. It's dark brown in colour, a little darker than normal dog poo, sort of like melted dark chocolate.

However it's definately brown not black, however I'm getting concerned it may indicated blood in his poo? For the record there is no sign of any fresh bright red blood, nor are there any black coffee granules which I know indicates dried blood. It's smooth dark brown throughout. But I've never seen his loose stools look like this before and today us about the 3rd day of it.

He did have some liver on Sat but he'd already passed on of these stools the day before so I don't think it's connected. He had half a rabbit yesterday which normally agrees with him really well and I'm surprised that all that bone hasn't sorted him out yet, but he did eat it late yesterday. I have used a fair bit if black pudding over the weekend for recall training, I wonder if that has had an effect? It's a similar colour lol!

I've given him some bland chicken mince, a raw egg, a raw carrot and a little mashed potato for breakfast in the hope of binding him up. The other option I suppose is starving him for 24 hours but he'd hate that.

If it was Moon they I'd have probably taken him to the vets tonight but Cain really hates the vet, it stresses him out beyond all belief so I don't want to put him through that unless totally necessary. Btw his demenour is fine, he was happy and active yesterday although did sleep more than usual, and his appetite is great. So he's showing no other sign of being ill.

My concern is the the darkness of the stool. What does a dark bloody stool look like? I've never seen one.

Dogs fed on raw do often have very dark brown poos (well ours do) what is the normal colour of his fed on raw?

Black pudding might not have helped.

Our viz used to get the squits (sometimes like you described) a lot when fed raw so we had to change his food.

Sophie

Hi there, thanks for your reply. I've been working myself up into a bit of a tizzy by reading articles online about dark poos....I think I should stop! I'm not mad and people probably think I'm overreacting but since I lost Moon after he had a seemingly harmless stomach upset (turned out to be kidney failure) I tend to get overally stressed about vomiting and diaorhea (I can't spell it!).

His stools have definately been better on raw than kibble, he just seems to have these spates of loose stools for a few days and I can't work out why. He gets fed a variety but has a feeding schedule so gets the same mix of things each week.

His poo is normally fairly dark brown when solid, could this be to do with the blood in his diet due to raw feeding?

I'm slightly suspicious that the black pudding may have been open in he fridge too long, I'm hoping perhaps that may have just upset his stomach.

Gah! I feel like I'm never going to get to the route of his stomach upsets. Every time is seems fine, it starts again.

Blood in his diet will certainly come out the other end as black. The gut changes the colour of it. I know it sounds gross but if you dab a tissue on his poo you can see if it's blood or not.
I hope he's ok. Could be IBS....then he would have blood in his poo. xx

Yep, blood in meat / some meats / tripe makes poos very dark that is totally normal, I think it's cereal / rice / fillers in kibble that make poo light / yellow or when raw feeding obviously bone make poo white-ish.

Understand that you like to keep very close eye on things and is always better safe than sorry but like you said I'd put it down to the black pudding.

Our viz had pravo as a pup and has always been sensitive (he's now on skinners duck and rice and wainwrights wet food and is doing well although sometime a little loose but nothing bad) when he was on raw like our other dogs he often got really upset and got colitus so had to stop feeding raw but it sounds like it good for your dog but raw food does vary so there maybe the odd little bit that sets him off every now and then.

Let us know how it goes.

Sophie

oops posted at the same time.

My lot produce these when they have Heart chunks. What you put in influences what you get out.

Thanks for your reply. I thought the same thing. The strange thing is that he has the same food each week and as I said there was no obvious pattern as to what upset him Which is what puzzles me. I had a suspicion it was raw mackerel for a while however he's be absolutely fine for the last 4 weeks on it, strangely this bout did start the day after raw mackerel....?

However raw food passes through quickly and as he has different food each day, if it was a particular food item then surely you'd expect it to clear up in 24 hours once that food had gone through???

So no one thinks this sounds like bloody poo or anything to panic too much about just yet??

Nope, I don't think you should worry.

Ok, so panic over. The "binding" breakfast seemed to work, formed poos tonight including chunks of carrot so everything is moving through as normal. I fed the same binding foods for dinner, sticking with just chicken mince tomorrow to be sure then back to normal diet on Weds.

I think I solved it.....I'm a bad mummy Im pretty sure it was the black pudding. I hadn't realised how long it had been on the fridge, I dug the wrapper out of the bin and checked that date and it was well out of date. I feel soooooooo bad but at least it's nothing serious.