Valerie,

Considering my girlfriend thought my dog had irritable bowel syndrome for awhile, I am DEFINITELY giving this a try! Just purchased it online and will wait for it to come. At this point I'll try anything and everything you guys can recommend before having to go to the vet and pay ridiculous amounts of money for them to guess and check would could be wrong with him.

Question, when you were feeding Perfect Form to faith and sometimes your sibe now, are you doing it every day, for forever? or are you only feeding it to them when you notice their stomach gets upset?

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@ aljones, ha yes a problem that is going to drive me off a bridge, as aspen has shit more on my balcony, his crate, or randomly spewing in the hallway than he has outside on the grass.

i did a bland diet of boiled eggs, carrots, green beans. that worked (relatively) but i don't want to feed him that forever.. so I moved back to kibble

as far as the water, well he's been drinking the water since we moved in last july and for a few months everything was okay, hard stools, could hold his shit (no pun intended), and I was giving him the same amount of water as I do now.. (just fill up the water bowl and leave it when I leave for the day). my dog / girlfriends dog also are in the same apt complex and drink the same water, perhaps less, and have hard stools. so maybe i'll cut back on how much water he drinks and give that a try as well.

Thanks!!!

Faith had irritable bowel which is a condition that doesn't just go away, they have to live with it. So for her, Perfect Form was a daily requirement for her to be able to live a normal life. Since it is a natural product, Perfect Form is safer for long term use.

Now, none of my other dogs have irritable bowel so for them we only use Perfect Form on an as needed basis. Basically whenever they have the occasional upset stomach, soft tool, diarrhea, etc then we give them Perfect Form. Usually adding it to 1 meal does the trick.

It can't hurt to try it. I noticed they changed the formula slightly from when Faith was on it. All the ingredients are still the same but in different amounts. But it still works for my other dogs. I cannot say how the change would have affected Faith, if at all, but my guess is it would still have worked for her. The change was very minor.

My phone call really didn't last all that long but we've had a dreary, rainy, miserable, windy day and I tucked myself back in for a long nap (and won't sleep tonight!)

Jesse, in my mind, when we're referring to a bland diet it's normally boiled rice and boiled chicken. While I realize that desperation drives us to extremes, I hope that you haven't been trying everything that's come up - changes, especially that rapidly, would probably exacerbate the problem not relieve it (no pun intended).

When you mentioned the water, you said "we moved in last july and for a few months everything was okay" that suggests to me that there might have been a change of some kind at that point ... can you remember if there was anything significant? I'm not referring to just the dog but to you as well, often changes in the human partner can have radical affects on the canine portion. For example, a human moving in / coming over more often can exasperate separation anxiety - when we'd think it would have the opposite effect. A job change can affect how we interact with our pets in ways we wouldn't think to be obvious, so I'm suggesting that you really stretch your memory.

I'm lucky in that my two seem to have cast iron stomachs and I don't have to deal with this unless Sasha finds something while we're walking on the desert but it then clears itself up, normally within 24 hours.

@aljones,

I always thought rice wasn't good because it was considered a 'grain' and huskies should be eating a grain-free diet? (please correct me if I'm wrong). haven't tried the boiled chicken.

I kind of have been trying everything that comes up, haha, as long as it's reasonable. I mean before he wasn't eaten (extremely ab normal, as I feel like he could kill an entire dog food bag if I left it open to him) and he eats everything under the sun. the diatamecous earth has helped and he gulps his food down. when someone mentioned the water, i thought about it and considered that to be a possibility, because normally i leave him in my bathroom with a full bowl of water when i go to work. so i've limited the amount of water that he has available and for the past week he's been having rock hard stool. it wasn't until last night there was some liquid diarrhea with some clumps in there. going to continue this less-water hypothesis for a while as that's been the best thing that's worked yet.

hmmm as far as my move, there honestly haven't been too many other significant changes?.. job has been the same, commute has been much shorter than when i used to live an hour away from work, he's still in the relative same type of day-to-day positions, i feed him on the same schedules, if anything it's gotten better with my girlfriend coming and letting him out and feeding him at lunch. i understand separation anxiety happens to many dogs, but that is something i never considered with aspen. he's very independent, stoic, and pretty much does his own thing, when i leave, he's cool and just lays down. so don't think thats the case...

i got that perform form stuff last night so i fed it to him today (without the DE) and just going to try that and see how that goes. seeing a week (give or take) of straight rock hard stool has been a dream come true, so hopefully that'll continue.

will wait and keep you guys updated, thanks for all the help!

Actually, that's a real good question. We strongly suggest limiting the amount of grain in dog food but then turn around and suggest a diet that is almost entirely grain based for diarrhea - while I know it works since I've used it for Sasha a couple of times it definitely does sound counter intuitive ... any of you who know why it works want to chime in and explain, please.

Watch how much you limit his water, you don't want to go from diarrhea to dehydration - which can be fatal (well, either can be!) if ignored.

If everything after the move has been on a status quo then I wouldn't be too concerned that that might be the problem, just one of the many things to think about in situations like this one.

As for "trying everything", if the changes are too fast, you may be making the situation worse. Seldom is anything going to work "overnight" and you need to give his stomach a chance to settle one one thing before switching to something else. The general recommendation for a grown dog is to fast (starve) them for 24 hours, no nothing except a little water; then switch them to the rice and chicken for a couple of days. If things haven't stabilized by then it's time to call in the vet, because we're not there to see and make reasonable recommendations.

Maybe someone can add to this, but what I understand, most grains are corn, wheat and rice. Rice is more of a binder than the others, also rice is not processed as much as corn and wheat, lastly rice is the least of the three grains to cause intolerance. I will mention that you do not want to use any type of minute rice, no brown rice.

You need to stick with one diet for approximately one to three weeks before you can determine if it is suitable for your dog, it takes that long for your dog to adjust to a new diet.

Rice is water soluble, it absorbs in the intestine, unlike corn and wheat. As Al mentioned a good 12-24 hour fasting is recommended to allow your dogs tummy to settle. Something to note, and just discovered, keep the rice water(should be almost a milky white look to it), and use the rice water during the 12-24 hour fast. An excellent mash to use up to 5 days is

-¼-1/2 cup 100% Canned Pumpkin(pure)
-½ cup white rice (non minute)
-1-2 tablespoons unflavored plain live culture yogurt (using at least 2 to 10 billion viable bacterial organisms)
-Plain boiled chicken, no salt(shredded 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
-¼ cup warm water (rice water)

The pumpkin provides the right amount of fiber to firm, the rice is for the binder(binds the looseness in the intestine to firm up), the yogurt is to put back good flora in gut, the chicken is a bland form for the needed protein, the water prevents dehydration.

I do believe I would continue with Jen's advice of the DE, or the continuance of Val's advice. as much as the type of meal being a pain to make, it is the best formula, imho, to firm up stool. Gradually add back in kibble, if you get loose stools, back off the kibble. My girl is a great regulator, in that on a low active day, she may only eat one cup of kibble, I can not remember how much you have been feeding, but too much will produce loose stools in some dogs.

By not giving Aspen enough time to adjust to a new food may cause tummy upset as well. so once you get firm stools for say 2 plus days I would continue to feed that way up to 5-7 days, then slowly transition to what you truly want to feed, this may take up to 3 weeks before complete switch. You also need to monitor Aspen's weight, maintaining weight is very important if he is not I recommend vet, something else may be the problem. Also check his gums, if they become pale then he is dehydrated, and this is very detrimental to his health.

I have to agree with Al, I understand your avoidance of going to the vet, it can become very costly, however a healthy grown dog should never have loose stools almost always, he, even if maintaining weight, is loosing alot of valuable vitamins and minerals.

Al and Renee,

You guys' advice is amazing! I'm going to try to see how he does in these next couple weeks, as he's been having relatively hard stool lately (perhaps that perform form stuff works?). I'll readjust my strategy after I see how he does with this.

I have a question, when you guys mention rice, do you mean just plain white rice NON COOKED? or am I supposed to cook the rice first?

Yeah one of my big issues with fasting and letting his tummy settle, as well as limiting food so he wasn't diarrheaing everywhere and also when sometimes he wasn't eating (not the case anymore, he's been hounding down the food) is that his weight was dropping and I could feel his bones protrude more.

COOKED!

The rice thing - before I was diagnosed gluten intolerant, I read a bunch of stuff. Turns out, rice is the only grain that does not ferment in the gut.