All dogs can get loose stools (the definition of diarrhoea) after ‘dietary indiscretion’ (also known as raiding the bins or picking up offensive material off the grass on walks!). This short-term looseness usually sorts itself out with bland food for a few days. It can happen to raw and kibble fed dogs, alike. 

The more worrying issue is where the runny poos go on for some time – anything over two weeks or so is considered to be ‘chronic’ or long-term. You may be surprised to hear that a remarkably high number of dogs produce less than perfect stools, sometimes for years and years. Their owners are used to seeing a sticky mess coming out of their dog. They assume it’s normal. It’s not.

IBD or Irritable Bowel Disease is often diagnosed in these dogs after infections and liver, and bowel problems have been ruled out. Most IBD is related to changes in the gut microbiome after being disrupted by food sensitivities. 

All dogs have particular food they obviously can’t handle. For some it’s chicken, for others it’s lamb etc. For some, it’s those pink ‘treats’ that don’t look like they were even made on this planet. If the gut is disrupted enough, it can get to a place where it can’t rescue itself as it might usually. Then you have a permanent condition – IBD. 

At my practice, we use the Thompson Stool Score system to assess, note and communicate about stool quality. Here’s an introduction: 

The Thompson Stool Score for Dogs and Cats

0 – Water/Soup

3 – Thin, but will hold together on the ground without dribbling everywhere — uncooked thin cookie dough. 

5 – Blancmange – neither liquid or solid. Scoopable, but leaves a mess.

7 – Formed but soft. Very soft sponge cake. Not pickupable, but perhaps cleanly scoopable.

10 – Perfect cigar or torpedo. Pickupable between two fingers.

It’s that simple. (I find food analogies are useful because they are so memorable, if unappetising!) You can add helpful detail like colour, smell and uniformity (lumpiness) for added information. Beware of making things too complicated.  

The most common cause of IBD or chronic diarrhoea and the easiest to fix is due to dietary sensitivity to one or more components in the diet. If you’re feeding a kibble or a tinned formula, there are usually ten or more ingredients, and you can’t separate them. If you feed a home-prepared or complete raw single protein food, you are more in control of what you feed your pet. You can strip the diet down to one protein source (meat) at a time and see what effect this has on stool quality. It’s a straightforward but effective way to investigate these things yourself.

Wheat, beef and chicken are the most common foods that cause sensitivity/intolerance. Why? Because they are the most commonly used in foods and have been for decades. They are the cheapest meat ingredients, maximising profits for the processed food corporations. 

If your dog or cat produces a 7/10 stool, you might be ok with this, but if you think about it, they are 30% down on a perfect poo (if the poos were 5/10, they’d be 50% down on perfect). They either have a degree of gut inflammation, hindering fluid absorption from stool, or their microbiome is disordered. Of course, there are diseases like cancer, hepatitis and worms that can also give poor stool quality, so if you have any concerns, contact your vet who can run some tests to rule these more severe diseases out. 

Take-Home Message

The ‘take-home’ is that your dog or cat should be producing great, easily pickupable 10/10 poos almost all the time. If they are not, you’ve got some work to do. If they’re bad, get to the vet, if they’re not, get down to your trusted raw pet shop and discuss doing some protein trials with them. 

Raw food is fantastic for treating IBD and diarrhoea. Of course it is – dogs have been eating it for hundreds of thousands of years!