[NAGDU] Introduction and question

Fri May 22 01:08:39 UTC 2020

Hello Asia,

Gosh, talk about being thrown in to the deep end.

There are so many things to consider, I’m not going to mention any foods
except to say there will be a food that works better than others. It
depends on your dog as to which one.

Then there is the debate about with or without grains, all I will say
there, is once again it depends on the dog.

My first guide, nothing seemed to effect him, but the other two have had
different issues that I’ve been able to solve. With my current guide, my
vet was concerned about his general gut health, and explained that once a
dog had problems the health of the gut suffered. The vet suggested finding
a good probiotic would make a big difference. So off I went to find one, I
use one called “protexin” it comes in a powder form, I put it in to his
food, and two days later it had started working wonders.

Combine a probiotic with the food you feel is working best for your boy,
and that might help to go a very long way to solving the problem. You are
going to have to work out which food, and then a probiotic of your choice.

My second tip is make sure your dog is drinking enough water, as my vet
pointed out this can be an issue that then causes the problems you mention.

My third tip, and I see another email has already mentioned this is the
“toilet harness”. I feel I can comment further on that, as when on the
Board of my school I introduced it to the Board, and the staff were against
using it, but got direction from the Board that it was to be introduced.

I have trained my dogs to only poo when the toilet harness is on. There is
never any mess to clean up, and it fits easily in to your pocket. I don’t
have it on my dog when walking him, I’ve trained him to pull over and stop
if I’m out and he really has to go. He will wait, standing there for me to
put the toilet harness with bag attached on him. He goes then, and we get
on with the walk.

I also think this stops dogs just going anywhere, because they if trained
the way AI did it, won’t poo without it on. Generally when I leave home my
dog doesn’t need to go, but he knows exactly what to do should he need to.

Here at work, I put it on him at lunch time, and he goes then. He will also
go at home before I leave for work, and I give him the chance after dinner.

Speaking of dinner, that brings me to my next tip.

My first two dogs were not split fed, meaning they ate only one meal a day,
and that was at night. When getting my current boy, the school told me
they’d changed how this was done, and all dogs were now split fed, meaning
they would have half there meal in the morning, and the other half at night.

I continued on with this until 4 years ago. My vet happened to ask me about
this, and suggested I not split his feed, but go back to what I’d done with
my first two guides, and that was to give him his complete feed at night. I
informed the vet I’d been split feeding him from the time he came in to my
life and that had been five years before. My vet insisted it didn’t matter,
this was what he wanted me to do, starting that very day. I was concerned
that it should be a gradual process, and my vet said “no” start tonight, no
mucking around.

A combonation of all of the above has worked for my dog, and I had the
exact issues you were having.

I hope this might be of some help.

Please keep me informed.

The very best of luck.

Cheers.

Brent.

*From:* NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] *On Behalf Of *Asia
Quinones-Evans via NAGDU
*Sent:* Friday, 22 May 2020 12:17 AM
*To:* James Boehm via NAGDU
*Cc:* Asia Quinones-Evans
*Subject:* [NAGDU] Introduction and question

Hello my name is Asia Quinones-Evans and I have been on this list for a
while and I do not think I introduced myself. I went blind 6 years ago due
to a brain tumor cutting off my optic nerves. I went blind in less than a
week so it was not a process for me and I had to learn new things very
quickly. I knew nothing about the blind community or even the guide dog
community the only thing I did know was there were dogs out there to help
people with disabilities. I learned everything quickly though because I
wanted to get back to sports and doing most of my daily things. I will be
23 in October so I lost my sight just before I could learn to drive. I
actually am not that upset about it because I was not a person that was
really excited to drive but now I do wish that I could run errands much
easier without depending on someone else. I live in Ohio in a city that has
public transportation but it is not accessible for the blind to use it is
barely accessible for the sighted community here to use. So majority  of my
transportation is walking, my dad driving me, or Uber. I also had to attend
with an over protective dad that did not want me walking around our
neighborhood by myself with just my cane. Next month will be 2 years I have
been partnered with a wonderful Leader dog named Greyson. He is a yellow
lab and is around 80 pounds. With having such a large dog now my dad does
not mind so much that I go out to the stores around me. His opinion is that
since most people where we live are scared of large dogs and will think
Greyson will bite them then it is fine for me to go out. At first though I
had to convince my dad that I could not just go out with him behind us and
only on set routes. My dad works long days a lot of the time and we would
not have been able to go out until he got home from work. I finally
convinced my dad that I needed to go out with Greyson to build our
partnership and work at different times of the day to encounter different
things.

After that long introduction I would like to ask a question about digestive
problems. As long as I have been working with Greyson he has had stool
problems. I have put him threw several food changes and we have also tried
a food that is ment to  help with digestive problems but that did not work.
The food he was on for a while in training and when I got home with him was
Purina Pro Plan Sport 26 16 formula. I eventually changed him to Diamond
Naturals Beef Meal and Rice Formula because he would throw up sometimes and
it was just bile. I learned that sometimes that if a food has too much
protein in it that can cause tummy upsets. The Purina food also eventually
made him poop stewy stool which means that it was partly solid then the
rest was messy and his schedule was very inconsistent. Like sometimes he
will go at the same time for several days and then not want to go at the
same time the next day. I have also worked with my local vet and Leader’s
vet to think of ways to solve it. First they suggested a general deworming
and a steroid round. Both of these did nothing to help him. They showed
improvement for a few days on them and after that his stools went back to
being stewy. My local vet also put Greyson on Hills ID prescription food
for about a month. After a week though his stools went back to being stewy
even on that food. I have finally put Greyson on Natural Balance Sweet
Potato and Venison Limited Ingredient formula thinking that the issue was
chicken products in the other foods. It has been about two weeks with
Greyson on this food and his stools are stewy once again after improving
for a little while. I will be going to my local vets office after its been
60 days. Another issue is that he always wants to go poop while on a
walking route. I do not find this to be much of a problem because I have
taught him to tell me when he has to go but the poop that comes out has no
form to it at all when this happens. It does not matter if I make him go
right before we go on a walk he will still want to go after several minutes
of walking. Any treats that he gets I have changed to treats that only are
one  protein type to eliminate that cause. I do not feed him treats while
working because he gets distracted from his work and starts demanding the
treat before he completes the task. This is one thing I will not put up
with from any dog so he just gets petting and verbal praise while working
and does fabulous work with both of these.

With this whole explanation I was hoping that someone on this mailing list
could give me any ideas that I could bring up to my vet to think about. Or
anything I could do to help my puppy not have so many bad poops. If someone
wants to email me privately so not to clutter up this list you can email me
at: asiaevans102897 at gmail.com

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