Ok so what do I actually mean by the phrase “Dogs With Sensitive Stomachs”? – it’s dogs whose bowl movements can often be very loose or even have diarrhea on a frequent basis for no good reason.
Over the years a couple of our Golden Retrievers have suffered from sensitive stomachs. Something as simple as changing their food brand or even a change in location could trigger it!
One of our current dogs Mica and an earlier dog Barley had sensitive stomachs whilst, Ben, Fern, Jane and our other current dog Ember had pretty much bomb proof constitutions!
I don’t know if there is any solid evidence that Golden Retrievers are more likely than other breads to have sensitive stomachs they do however have a greater tendency to suffer from bloat due to them being deep chested which, may be linked.
Please note if you think your dog may have bloat you need to see a vet quickly as its a killer.
You’ll find a good article on bloat and the symptoms here – Bloat in dogs | Symptoms and treatment of bloat | Blue Cross
One of our current dogs (Mica) falls in to this category of sensitive stomach and we had tried various different foods – various dry mixes, tinned food and a mixture of tin and dry mix with varying results but never complete success.
Now don’t get me wrong the foods produced by the big name dog food companies are no doubt excellent products but they come at a premium price. Golden Retrievers are big dogs and take a fair bit of food so the costs soon rack up,
We decided to look in to alternatives and after much searching online came across a couple of articles about fibre in the diet and how pure pumpkin puree can be beneficial.
Please note we would recommend you speak to your vet before doing this for your dog.
Well needles to say we tried it and were pleased with the results. The frequency of loose episodes reduced significantly and the interval between them increased.
Here in the UK there are not many places that stock pure pumpkin puree with no added sugar. Sainsbury and Waitrose were the only places I could find that had the Baking Buddy brand that we were using.
We give all our dogs (sensitive stomach or not) a heaped tablespoon of the puree mixed in with their normal food.
Unfortunately the Covid pandemic put and end to pumpkin puree – it disappeared off the shelves. Although it is now back in stock I notice the price has gone up significantly but that’s not an issue to us as, we came up with an alternative when we could no longer get it.
Now we give our dogs mashed butternut squash which is essentially the same i.e. fibre.
We buy the butternut squash in the veg section, peel it, de-seed it, chop it up, cook it in water till its soft then mash it up. Store it in the fridge and it keeps for a week.
It’s important that you remove all the seeds and skin as these I believe are toxic.
So our dogs now get a meal consisting of a tin of dog food (Chappie), dry mix complete and a large dollop of mashed butternut squash which they wolf down and are thriving on.
There you have it dogs with sensitive stomachs and what you can do about it.
