Questions

If your pet’s stools aren’t extremely watery, don’t contain fresh blood, aren’t dark black and tarry, and aren’t associated with vomiting or excessive straining, take your pet off food for 12 hours. Make sure water is always available. After 12 hours you may try feeding a bland diet of cooked white rice and boiled chicken or lean hamburger. Mix 1 part meat to 2 parts rice. If diarrhea worsens, you see any of the signs listed above or the condition doesn’t improve in 24 hours, call to make an appointment for an exam. DO NOT GIVE Pepto Bismol or Kaopectate to your pet (especially cats) unless you talk to our clinic first.

You may purchase a product called “Forbid” (or try meat tenderizer) to sprinkle on your dog’s food. It changes the stool, making it taste even worse. You may try “booby-trapping” any stool in the yard with hot sauce. However, you must be consistent. If your dog encounters any stool that has not been booby-trapped then it will take longer for your dog to stop this habit. Also try leash walking your dog and keeping the yard picked up.

Fleas are small, dark brown-black insects. You can usually see them, often near the base of the tail or on the belly. They flee from light. You can also see “flea dirt”. This dark, grainy material in the hair coat or on the skin turns red when moistened, as opposed to dirt, that continues to be black even when wet.