my 6 month old pup has diarrhea again, we were at the vets at the begining of the week and got some antibiotics and protinex pro biotic paste, which seemed to work straight away and firm him up. It has now come back today, like water and the only thing he has had other than his food is raw hide, has anyone else had a problem when feeding raw hide? also we feed him on gusto puppy, does anyone else feed their dog this and have a good experience on it? many thanks for any responses, i am very grateful!

Rawhide most definitely is something that upsets a lot of dogs, so this could well be the cause. As for Gusto,  I used to feed Gusto to all my dogs but I had a dog that developed very serious problems with his legs after having been brought up on the puppy version so although I cannot ever prove this was the cause, I'd never use it again for growing puppies, prefer higher quality foods. The way I see it, once a dog is fully grown, bones all developed properly etc you can use a cheap food if it suits them, but when they are growing it's safest to feed the very best -especially in the case of larger breeds.

I think you answered your own question there. Almost DEFINATELY the raw hide chew is the most likely cause. I only ever gave them to my dogs once, never again. They are notorious for causing diarhea in dogs and most people i know just don't buy them for this very reason. When you think about the drying process etc they are not the most hygenicly produced chews that you can buy.

thanks for the answers so far, took it off him last night and he seems fine now, so def won't be giving it back to him and fingers crossed that is the cause.

Does anyone use a probiotic on a daily basis for their dog, the vet suggested it might be worth while, but don't know which to use and wondered if anyone had experiences with it

My dogs get a dollop of natural yogurt on their breakfast. I have a boy who gets upset tums and I use a probiotic by Denes that has liquorice in, it always seems to do the trick.

I don't give my dogs those raw-hide things any more, especially those biggish ones shaped like 'bones' with the nobbly bits on each end, especially after my neighbour's dog bit a nobbly thing off the end of one and must have swallowed it almost whole and it swelled up inside him and blocked his intestines and had to have an op once it was discovered what had happened! 

We tested what happened by putting a knobbly bit off the other end in a mug of water and within two days it had swelled up and filled the mug so had grown several times the size once the water had been absorbed!

I think some of that raw hide stuff probably has bacteria on it and it's not good for dogs!

I give my Boxer some natural yoghurt a couple of times a week. He is now 19 months and has always had a bit of a sensitive tum which resulted in runny poos fairly regularly. I kept going back to the vets thinking it was colitis as he was showing all the symptons of this and he was given tablets but it never made any difference. I now have him on a raw diet and I keep some pro kalin in the fridge which he has now and then. He stills has a runny poo on occasions but not as much as when he was a younger pup.

I found raw hide did not agree with him one bit, gave him terrible runs and made him sick. We just stick to raw bones and biscuit type treats now.

Rosie

Yes we use probiotic supplement called Pro-fibre in every meal, on line its cheap as well, a small scoopful every meal keeps him fine, seems to have cleared up his anal gland problem as well.