Your dog eats everything, so it's no surprise that he occasionally suffers from diarrhea. If your dog appears healthy, despite the loose stools, try treating your dog's diarrhea with natural, home remedies; this will save you the cost of a vet visit, and you won't have to spend the next week trying to trick your dog into swallowing his antibiotics.
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The Trouble with Antibiotics
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Metronidazole is one of the antibiotics your vet might prescribe for a case of acute diarrhea. Antibiotics will work, but if your dog's condition isn't serious, consider a natural remedy instead. The overuse of antibiotics has created new strains of bacteria that are resistant to medicines, making it harder to treat future bacterial infections. Antibiotics can also have nasty side effects, causing your dog to vomit or lose its appetite. Metronidazole also tastes awful and getting this pill down your dog's throat twice a day will be a challenge.
The health of your dog's digestive system depends on a balance of good and bad bacteria. Antibiotics kill the bad bacteria, but they also kill good bacteria. After an antibiotic treatment, your dog's digestive system will have low amounts of good bacteria and therefore will be more susceptible to another infection.
A Bland Diet
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Treating diarrhea at home is as easy as chicken and rice. Feeding your dog small portions of bland food will get its digestive system back on track. Choose a low-fat meat like chicken or turkey and mix it with boiled white rice, cottage cheese, pumpkin and/or yogurt. Continue with this diet for a few days after its stool has returned to normal. Then wean your dog back onto regular food by adding kibble into the mix. If the chicken and rice diet doesn't help the diarrhea, take your dog to the vet.
Probiotics
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Probiotics are the good bacteria found in your dog's digestive system. A lack of these friendly bacteria may be the cause of your dog's digestive troubles. If so, there are probiotic dietary supplements for dogs, and probiotics can also be found in many kinds of yogurt. When shopping for yogurt, check that the label lists live cultures or probiotics.
There is still some debate over how successful probiotics have been at improving digestive health, so purchase commercial probiotic products at your own risk.
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