Hi, I'm Dr. Fiona Caldwell and I'm a practicing veterinarian at Idaho Veterinary Hospital and I'm answering questions from Pets Best Facebook page today.
The first question comes from Donna who asks what I would recommend to feed a Schipperke with a sensitive stomach. She's tried various formulas with salmon as the main ingredient but he doesn't like it.
Schipperkes are a little, usually dark-colored haired breed with kind of fluffy hair. I wouldn't say necessarily that they're prone to sensitive stomachs, per se, as a breed in general, but sensitive stomachs as a whole in the population certainly can occur.
There are some things that you can do to try to find a dog food that's going to work well for him and also provide the nutrients that he needs. Make sure when you purchase food from a pet store or wherever you're getting the food to see if they have a money-back guarantee. A lot of times you can return these bags of food if he doesn't like it. That way as you're doing your experimenting to see what he likes and what works for his stomach, you can return these bags in the meantime.
There are a lot of brands that are actually advertised as meant for sensitive stomachs. That would be a great place to start. You could also contact your veterinarian. There are some prescription diets available that are formulated to be really easy on the stomach.
The next question comes from Kristin. "Why isn't the smell of poop disgusting to my dog and why will she eat it when humans can't get near it?" This is unfortunately a common thing for dogs, especially young dogs and puppies, and it is really disconcerting. There is probably an evolutionary reason for it. In the wild, dogs were trying to get the most nutrients as possible from their food so by eating their stool they might be able to get another kind of second run.
Obviously, in this day and age, this is not a behavior that you want to encourage because it can help perpetuate the life cycle of certain types of internal parasites. There are some medications available that make poop less interesting to dogs. This seems a little counterintuitive but they are out there. A lot of them are over-the-counter. Given to pets, they can sometimes help them to recognize that this isn't something that they should eat.
www.petsbest.com