Every dog poops - What makes a good one?
A lot of clients have poo related questions, so I decided to go ahead and write a blog post so I could share what I know. This post contains a series of pictures and explanations to help you identify a healthy dog poop. Checking the quality of your dog’s poo is the best way to make sure your dog's food is agreeing with them. Dogs are mammals, so a healthy dog poo shouldn't look all that different from a healthy human poo.
The main factors I evaluate are size, density, color, smell and frequency. For each of these factors, I'm looking for moderation - the poo shouldn't be too big or small, too firm or soft, too light or dark, too stinky or acidic smelling or too frequent.
While dry dog food is the most convenient and common way to feed a dog, it is a fairly recent invention for dog diets, popularized after World War II as an easy and affordable way of feeding our dogs. While dogs have adapted to the diet, not all of them do well on kibble and, given their evolutionary history, that is no surprise. Before dry food became popular, dogs were fed a combination of scraps from the table and the butcher.
Today, those who don't feed dry food either cook for their dog or feed a raw diet (ideally the whole prey model).
Some of the dogs in my pack today are fed a raw diet, including my own. If anyone is interested in learning more, please contact me! I am a huge proponent of this diet and have seen dogs with troubled digestive systems have the first healthy poo of their lives after eating raw.
That being said, and as you will see in the photos, there are also dogs that do well on dry food. Your dog’s poo is the best testimony to your food! If you are so inclined, keep reading to take a look at the photos of today's dog poo and my evaluations of each. For purposes of privacy, the dogs will be kept anonymous. I am not a veterinarian, but I am around a lot of dog poo! Taking out 5- 8 dogs a day, I am guaranteed to see (and pick up) more that most owners see every day. Over the course of a year, that adds up! From dealing with dogs of different sizes, history, breeds and ages and talking to owners about different foods, I have learned a few things I would like to share.
Not so good
This poo is light in color and very soft and shapeless by the end, the consistency of frozen yogurt. You can see the solid first nugget at the bottom of the photo, then this poo quickly deteriorates. This is still pretty early in the hike, so the poo shouldn't be of such poor quality. I would definitely change this dog’s food.
A sneaky raw poo
If you can spot it through this grass, this raw poo is an A+ on color (nice and dark but still brown, not black), size, density and don't smell. These poos break down into white dust in a few days. Raw-fed dogs are easy to distinguish by their poo.
The pinnacle of health
This is a raw fed dog's third poo and it happened towards the end of the hike. As you can see, it's still a good color, density and shape. Don't get tricked into thinking that exercise is a good excuse for the complete deterioration of the quality of dog poo. It is possible for the poo to look good no matter how active the dog is - as long as their diet is agreeing with them.
This one is okay
Here we have another kibble fed dog who has struggled to find the right food. This poo is appropriate for her size, good color, but a touch on the light/orange side if I am being picky. It came out in two chunks with good density and didn't smell. This owner had to try a lot of foods to find one that worked and should stick with it!
This poo looks great
This is an older dog who loves her kibble. The size is appropriate for her weight. The density is good. It has shape and contours. It feels firm and solid through the bag. The color is good, not too light or dark. This was her only poo on this hike, so frequency is great and it didn't smell. Perfect poo!
Yucky puppy poo
This poo has some shape and density at the start, but becomes fat and fluffy, breaking down to the consistency of frozen yogurt or peanut butter. The color is too light, more tan than brown. She is a big girl, but the size is still on the big side. Ideally the poo is nice and firm so it can naturally express your dog's anal glands. This poor pup even had to do the squat walk to squeeze it out.
Poor pup!
Within 10 minutes after the first poo, the puppy squeezed out the rest. This poo is more like melted frozen yogurt, as you can see from the bubbles on top and lack of shape or density. If this happens occassionally, especially after a dog has eaten something outside of their normal diet, that is ok, but if you are getting poos like this on a regular basis, you should be as concerned as if your own poo was looking this way and implement a change in diet. Again, we are early in the hike here so this is diet, and not exercise, related.
Another raw poo
This is a bit bigger than the first and has a range of color (dark at the start on the right, very light in the middle and getting a bit darker at the end on the left). The density also ranges - the start and end look great and are firm with nice contours while the middle is a bit soft and shapeless. This is the middle of the hike so this dog has been exercising. Still, I would still say this poo looks pretty good!
Not a dog poo
I took a photo of some scat on the trail My research tells me this belongs to a racoon. You can see the whole berries in it and how the density and shape more closely resemble the raw fed dog poo, but s o much darker it makes it easy to tell that some dog owner wasn't negligent in cleaning up the trail).