Just the day I came back from Malaysia, I got the runs immediately the morning after. But from all the good food I had, it was well worth it.

That reminded about my Maltese which I adopted. She was never in the pink of health and she has bouts of diarrhoea or rather soft stools very often. However even with a healthy pet, they can get diarrhoea from a sudden change in diet, food intolerance, stress and intestinal parasites.

Soft stools caused but dietary intolerances usually go away pretty quickly if the stomach is given enough rest, but remember, If the diarrhoea persists for more than a week or is followed by any or a combination of the following symptoms, please seek medical advice from a vet immediately:

• Black tarry stools
• Blood/mucous in the stool
• Foamy stools
• Abdominal pain
• Accompanied with frequent vomiting
• Marked lethargy

Otherwise, here are some suggestions that may help your pet alleviate their symptoms after two days.

1. Keep a tube of probiotic product for animals in your fridge. Choose those that contains clay which helps to harden their stool.
2. If you don’t have probiotics with you, you can feed small dogs a teaspoon of plain yoghurt  twice daily and a tablespoon for big dogs. It doesn’t work as effectively as the probiotic supplement, but what the hell, it’s a healthy treat!
3. Fast your pet for a meal and in the evening, feed it something light and in small portions. E.g. Cooked oats, rice, vegetables, pumpkin, sweet potato, chicken breasts, fibrous fruits like banana or guava. Save the broth for them to drink to help replenish their fluids.
4. To test if your pet is properly hydrated, pull on the skin on their neck and if the skin retracts back quickly, then they’re okay.
5. To be safe however, you might want to mix isotonic beverages into their drinking water or better, get electrolyte sachets from the pharmacy if you have one near you.
6. To make your own electrolyte supplement, you may stir some raw honey and pink rock salt/unrefined sea salt (those that aren’t pure white) into their drinking water.
7. If your pet refuses to drink, get a syringe without the needle, fill it with the solution you choose to feed, place the syringe between the space between the cheeks and teeth and feed the solution slowly. OR simply, add wet food or water to their diet. As a rule of thumb, a dog should be getting 60ml of fluid per kilogram body weight per day and cats half that amount.

Finally if your pet constantly has problems with soft stool due to poor digestion, may I suggest that you try this brand of pet food K9 Natural. From my own experience and from many others, pets fed on K9 Natural experienced very good absorption resulting in very little, firm stools. I really like that because I know that my pets are being fed with what they need and very little is turned to waste.

Again, if you have any feedback or if you have any tips that you’d like to share, please write us a comment! Good luck and may your pet be healthy always.