Di-Di Dance

There's a reason why puppies are so adorable. Our foster homes are discovering that reason as they struggle with the lack of sleep, the mess, and the expense of pups with intestinal issues.

For some reason, there's always a stage with just about every pup where food just starts to go right through them. Whether it has to do with the fact that dogs in general (and retrievers in particular) have rather indiscriminate tastes and will eat almost anything they can swallow, just part of the maturation of their immune systems or something else entirely is hard to say. It just is. And "it" is a mess.

I wish I could do more to help other than meager words (CAUTION: This advice is not meant to counter anything your vet tells you to do), but for what it's worth...

• Make buckets of white rice - store it in single serving portions in the freezer;

• Keep cans of pumpkin (not pie pumpkin - just pumpkin) in your cupboard and mix with the rice. My vet recommended this as a natural form of fiber. I can't promise it will work for what ails all dogs, but it works well with my dogs. Better yet, it's cheap and it can't hurt them;

• The solution to pollution is dilution. Buy the best hose sprayer you can find and flush each poo puddle immediately;

• Buy a bag of barn lime at Fleet Farm and treat your yard. It won't hurt your pets, it's a great natural fertilizer, and it will actually kill giardia - a bug that often causes doggie di-di, but is also hard to culture from stool samples.

• Keep your dog as far as possible from lakes, ponds, golf courses or other goose poop collection sites (see above about indiscriminate tastes). Goose poop is laden with giardia.

• Finally, find ways to laugh at it. It won't stop the flow, but it does help to cope. Check out this link to see what helped me get through it with my second dog.

Gotta run.

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