If your pet has started having diarrhea but is otherwise healthy with normal behavior, then withhold their food (not water) for 12 hours. A short fast allows the gastrointestinal (GI) tract to rest and heal. After the 12 hour fast, start feeding a bland diet. I recommend fat-free ground turkey and 100% canned pumpkin. Start with 80% turkey to 20% pumpkin. If canned pumpkin isn’t available, you can roast pumpkin, butternut squash or sweet potato in the oven until soft and add to the ground turkey.
The traditional diet recommendation for our pets was ground beef and rice, but beef is high in fat and rice is starchy with zero nutrition for our pets with digestive upsets. Pumpkin is an excellent source of potassium (lost through diarrhea) and as pumpkin has soluble fiber, it also soothes and coats the GI tract and slows down gastric emptying.
Feed the mixture of ground turkey and pumpkin until the stool returns to normal, then gradually mix your pet’s regular food in over the next few days and monitor. If diarrhea does not completely resolve in 3 days, then you should consult your regular veterinarian.
These are the most common causes of diarrhea in cats & dogs:
- Dietary indiscretion
- Food allergies
- Hyperthyroidism (cats)/Hypothyroidism (dogs)
- Sudden change in diet
- Ingestion of foreign bodies
- Viral and bacterial infections
- Parasitic infections
- Pancreatitis
- Stress
- Inflammatory disease
- Immune-mediated Disease
- Cancer
