How to Help Aid Your Dog's Digestion

Making sure your dog’s digestive system is in tip top shape is crucial to their overall health. If one thing is off, it might open up several different problems and that is anything but ideal. So what can we do to help their digestive system? We start off with learning about different symptoms, what you can do to assist their digestive health, etc. 

How do I know my dog is having digestion issues?

According to MerckVetManual.com, “Signs of digestive system disease can include excessive drooling, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting or regurgitation, loss of appetite, bleeding, abdominal pain and bloating, straining to defecate, shock, and dehydration. The location and nature of the disease often can be determined by the signs your pet shows.”

They expand on that last sentence through a few different examples:

• If your dog is excessively (or oddly) biting, chewing, and swallowing, these symptoms are typically associated with “diseases of the mouth, the teeth, the jaw, or the esophagus”. 
• If your dog is vomiting, that’s “usually due to inflammation of the lining of stomach or intestines (gastroenteritis) caused by infection or irritation”. They do note though that vomiting also can be caused by issues unrelated to digestion with an example being kidney disease. 

Aside from identifying the symptoms, what can I do to help my dog’s digestion?

We’ve got two recommendations for you:

• Introduce probiotics into your dog’s diet
• Assess your dog’s current diet and make some adjustments

About the Probiotics

Probiotics are ingestible live microorganisms promoted as having health benefits that aid or restore the flora in your gut. In rare cases do they have unwanted side effects. What they do is restore the healthy flora in the gastrointestinal tract of your beloved fur babies. When there’s an imbalance of flora, your doggo may experience digestive issues and are prone to other illnesses.

Probiotics can be used in response to specific circumstances or on a regular basis. The latter is recommended. Here are some situations where the probiotics can help:

GENERAL DIGESTIVE ISSUES / UPSET STOMACHS / VOMITTING 

If you go to your trusted local veterinarian and they discover your dog is experiencing things like diarrhea, they are more than likely to send you home with probiotics. Proper care for your dog’s digestive system can prevent inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, gastritis, colitis, and more!

SWITCHING FOOD 

This ties into digestive issues. Change can yield different results like it might with changing your dog’s food. To help transition in anticipation of sensitivity, probiotics can be used here to soften the blow and prevent unwanted reactions!

- Read more from How Probiotics Can Help Your Dog

About Your Dog’s Food

Before you consider switching up your dog’s food, it’s important to know what they need and the nutrition required to encourage a healthy digestive system. We recommend reading our blog post An Introduction to Dog Nutrition as it walks you through the different nutritional areas like proteins, fats, carbohydrates, etc. 

This is just a sampling of tips and informational posts we offer at Joyride Harness. You can find more content including tips and tricks and how-tos for caring for your dog on our blog at this section. Feel free to leave a comment or message us on our social media pages with tips you’re looking for!