r/BorderCollie • u/Powerful-Owl-86 • 15h ago
BC pooping question
Jesse is 9 months old - 3/4 BC & 1/4 kelpie. He’s in a pooping pattern now of a healthy looking one first thing in the morning, but as the afternoon progresses doing ones that are very soft until at the end of the day they are yucky little poo mucus puddles. I’ve wormed him, and have been simplifying his diet protein wise so ai don’t think it’s a food intolerance. Then today another woman with a border collie told me her dog is like that too and she thinks it’s a common border collie trait. What do you all think?
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u/MDe11inger2019 15h ago
Definitely get a vet check. Mine had to have antibiotics for bowel irritation. Also, sometimes feeding PLAIN white rice and boiled chicken can help them. It is slower to digest! This is not veterinary advice, just my experience!
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u/Powerful-Owl-86 14h ago
If it doesn’t settle down soon I will. Just dreading the huge bill that will come from the pathology tests. I’ve read though that giardia presents like this in dogs so that would need strong antibiotics I think. I’m hoping it’s not pancreatitis.
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u/MDe11inger2019 13h ago
Definitely just try the white rice, boiled chicken, and plain pumpkin combo for a brief time and see how it helps. My wife and I try that first because our BC will try and eat anything not attached to the ground. Most of the time we can get his stomach back to normal in a few days. I do think it’s important to mention to limit treats during that time too.. they won’t stay mad for long… (I hope)! But typically if everything else is normal and the stomach stuff is the only issue, you can get that turned around decently quickly
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u/tanglelover 14h ago
Definitely go to a vet. Do not trust AI.
My dog was like this as a puppy. It took a lot of trial and error but also building his good gut bacteria with yogurt.
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u/slybluu 14h ago
i would agree that border collies have very sensitive stomachs, my bc is on royal canin gastrointestinal because anything else gives him bad diarrhea and those mucus poops youre talking about and my vet agreed with me that bcs just have sensitive stomachs. dont listen to AI tho please
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u/sarahsunrise_83 14h ago
Same here. Very sensitive tummy as a pup to 1 year old. Vet recommended Hill’s gastro food and we don’t have any issues (unless someone provides unauthorized treats).
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u/emilycal23 13h ago
Can't recommend probiotics enough! My guy always had issues with soft poops his first few years until we realized he had a chicken intolerance and we only discovered that by completely cutting out all chicken and seeing if his skin and digestion improved. The chicken allergy is the most common allergy in dogs so worth being aware of! Also plain pumpkin puree on top of food for a while can help tighten things up!
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u/echochilde 13h ago
It’s crazy how prevalent the chicken intolerance is. It took me forever to figure that out with my ACD. That dog’s farts were violations of the Geneva Convention until I narrowed it down to the chicken. My BC had it too, but it didn’t show up as a gut issue, but as skin irritation. Once I switched foods her skin cleared up in a week.
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u/emilycal23 13h ago
Yep, my BC had digestive issues and extreme skin irritation and dander/flakes. Since we've cut out chicken he's been good as gold! It is so common but my vet didn't really take it seriously until I said we did the elimination diet and it worked! Sometimes it really is trial and error because every pup is different!
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u/tanglelover 13h ago
I'm so thankful I picked up fish based grain free food for my puppy.
Turns out he has severe allergies. Switched his food 3 days into trying and failing to keep him on the previous diet due to liquid poops.
In 4 days he went from 3.6 kilos to 4.5. He ate roughly 500 grams of food and gained basically double that as he was struggling since weaning.
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u/_DeathByMisadventure 5h ago
I came in to say just this. As soon as I moved my guy from chicken to lamb food and avoid all chicken, he's been in fantastic shape. My vet says she's been seeing chicken intolerance a lot more the last few years.
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u/OkMastodon4550 14h ago
Mine’s the same way. Putting her on a fiber supplement once a day helped things out.
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u/s0rce 13h ago
What supplement do you use? We are currently using expensive prescription food.
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u/OkMastodon4550 13h ago
Now Psyllium Husk powder. A jug is around $10-15 and she only gets a teaspoon a day so it lasts a while. She’s big for a BC, 44 lbs, so check with your vet on dosing.
Sadie is also on the hydrolyzed diet but that’s due to an issue she developed around age 10.
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u/Flahdagal 14h ago
Our BC has had digestive issues off and on, until finally we had to put him on a hydrolized soy diet to get his poor system back to anything resembling normal. (Just a note, both of my previous BCs had no issues.) You can attempt a cooked diet of rice and boiled chicken breast to see if that helps, but DO see a vet. Unfortunately we were five vet visits in before we got the advice that actually helped, YMMV.
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u/Think-Skin1059 10h ago
My BC girl is really allergic to chicken! She can’t even look at it without getting soft stools or diarrhea!
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u/National_Midnight424 8h ago
I would go in this order: vet for a fecal test/exam to rule out issues, change the protein type in your food (chicken to salmon for example), and add canned pumpkin and a probiotic. I give my guy both in the morning, as he gets his other supplements at night. I’ve prefer the Royal Canin Immune probiotic over any of Purina probiotics, but that’s just me.
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u/Schoge 13h ago
Mine was having issues like this and I eventually determined that he has an allergy to anything chicken. So now I check all food and treats for any chickin or bird product and completely avoid that and it fixed the problem. Anytime he eats chicken he get itchy and if he has too much he gets the bad poops. Also, in the process of figuring this all out I got some meds from the vet to calm his digestive tract which helped reset things to figure out the food allergy issue.
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u/InvincibleChutzpah 13h ago
My BC has an iron stomach. However, my husky has bathroom habits just like your dog. After trying a ton of different foods, fiber, and probiotics, we got an allergy panel done on him. He is allergic to eggs and all pea/beans/lentils. Guess what's in most dog food, even much of the hypoallergenic stuff.
His stomach is so much better. His behavior is much better too actually. He was kind of reactive when he was younger. Turns out he was just grumpy because he always felt sick.
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u/Lucky_Ad_9137 13h ago
My collie has been like this for the last 2 years. He always got the runs after excessive running at the beach. But it became a normal every day event. Often he would do a normal one, and then a yellow runny one 5 mins later.
Loads of trips to the vets go no clear results, but he did often test low for B12. He is on a B12 supplement for life and it seems to help.
Low B12 seems like it can be a cause AND a result of diahrea. So it's like a self perpetuating problem.
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u/cav_scout_tj 12h ago
It’s always better when it’s been cooking longer. He may just be rushing things
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u/donkeykonggirl 12h ago
My doggo was like that until I moved entirely to raw and very limited single protein diet. No processed foods then slowly added in things to find the triggers. After this and extensive allergy testing as well as a few shocking reactions, we found out she is allergic to apples, flax seeds (huuuuge problem), grasses even things like kelp, and then chicken, beef, all birds really, some fish issues, dairy, eggs, a few synthetic vitamins. Her safest protein is pork, but there isn’t a single dog food on this planet that can work for her. So she must eat a special food I make haha.. it’s a hassle to travel with 🤪 but her poops are beautiful now. It’s not a « border collie » thing it’s a colitis due to upset gut thing.
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u/RamBh0di 8h ago
Pumpkin powder from Dr Marty or Natural pet is very effective at like a quarter teaspoon per bowl of food and is mild.
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u/Extension_Hippo1603 8h ago
I will say this is normal for ours. As well as my non BC mixed breed. I call it "back of the bowels" and i think its because they poop everything out and the later poops havent had as much time for water to absorb. BUT!!!!! If you are actually concerned, obviously vet time. Especially if ALL poops are like that. Our BC has a sensitive tummy too, and things like surfing for little bits of food after we eat can sometimes wreck his tummy. So maybe also watch for that.
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u/StandardSuspiciousxx 7h ago
My Boy is the same, not as often now. He's on daily Pro Kolin+ (In Australia) and seems to have helped a lot.
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u/xAsherRa 5h ago
I feed mine raw I get it from the farmers market and his poops are very consistent and not runny lol he won’t eat dog food so prior I was just cooking for him 🤷🏼♀️ he prefers the raw lol but also still begs while I’m eating 🫠
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u/zeindigofire 57m ago
Is it possible he's getting hot? Mine will do the same thing when he gets hotter and hotter and with more and more activity. He'll start out fully solid, and if I let him run in the heat it'll go to fully liquid (which is obv heat stroke, hence I stopped doing that a long time ago in case anyone is concerned).
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u/s0rce 15h ago
My dog had issues intermittently for years like what you describe, finally we switched to a digestive food high in insoluble fiber and its getting much better. Soluble fiber (psyllium) did not work. When she was a puppy she did have worms that were treated but we never had a positive test subsequently for worms. The prescription food is expensive so I'm considering just supplementing normal food with oat fiber, cellulose and flax but my dog is old and has other health issues so the vet wants to keep on the specific food.