Low fat probiotic drinks...

...with dogs digestive systems being different to ours can these types of healthy yogurt drinks be beneficial to them. :smt115

I don't know about those. I have one every day anyway but have never offered one to the dogs. Natural live yoghurt is very good for helping a dogs digestion after a bout of illness though I have found.

Hi Runstock, funnily enough I was reading the Burns website yesterday, and was very surprised when I read that giving them live yoghurt is not very beneficial to them coz the stomach acids kills off all the good bacterial before it has a chance to get through to the gut, and I have always given mine a small amount of live yoghurt especially after anti-biotics to replace the pro-biotics in their system. You can, however, get special pro-biotics from your vet for this purpose as I used to get them for my horse. Hope this is helpful, maybe go take a look at the Burns website and you can read it for yourself, as it surprised me.

Thanks folks. Just looking for alternatives, today I split a single 100g pot between the three and have just finished clearing up the liquid poos from the yard But thats probably down to the liver, mash and onion gravy leftovers my OH gave them yesterday

Will go and look at the Burns website. Thanks again.

Do you mean Actimel & others like it can`t remember the names at the mo?
I believe they do help, have also heard how their stomach acid can kill off the benefial bacteria befor it has time to do any good but I still give it mine when necessary
Christine.

Yeh thats the same sort of stuff. My only reservation is the sugar in it... Itchy bums all round :smt101

Originally Posted by Christine

Do you mean Actimel & others like it can`t remember the names at the mo?

Hi Chistine and Helena I think you are refering to this quote from vet John Burns which is logical

"Yoghurt is sometimes used for therapy of chronic diarrhoea in the mistaken belief that the bacteria contained in yoghurt (Lactobacillus acidophilius or Lactobacillus bulgaricus) will colonise the bowel and displace unfavourable bacteria.
Yoghurt has bacteriocidal properties in vitro (test tube) but not in vivo (in the body). Orally administered bacteria in yoghurt does not displace resident or pathogenic bacterial populations in normal or diseased intestines of any animal. The bacteria in yoghurt are generally acid labile (destroyed by the stomach acid), limiting the numbers surviving passage through the stomach. (Research originally published in the Journal of Small Animal Practice Vol. 35)."


I use a little real organic live yogurt for sick dogs because it is light and nutritious and I understood it helped to replace lost rather than displace unfavorable bacteria, but yogurt itself can cause problems in a small number of dogs because as with all dairy products it contains lactose and a few dogs are lactose intolerant.

Runstock the liquid poos could be down to lactose intolerance , that is the main symptom

Luckily today poos are fine. I know one bitch reacts unfavourably to dairy product. She sheds all her coat hair on the belly and inner back legs, almost looks like she has been clipped... but not on these drinks... strange?

I give my dogs probiotics not yoghurt because of the lactose.

I started giving yoghurt & actimel on the advice of a couple of h/pathic vets to my dogs when they were recovering from parvo as pups, not as a cure but to help their intestine recover & replace the good bacteria They had it on a regular basis for a couple of yrs because it left them with a delicate tum. Fine now tho & they`re 4yrs old
None of my dogs have been intolerant to yoghurt but my eldest one always had dire rear with milk but she has no problem whatsoever with goats milk

Minds probably bit slow this morning but not sure what the confusion is about yoghurt, sorry???
Christine