12/04/2024
BORDER COLLIE HEALTH: Today our breed expert Carol Price looks at:
DIGESTIVE PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IN BORDER COLLIES
Digestive problems of some kind or another - like colitis, IBS or similar conditions - seem to be rampant in so many dogs today. And Border collies are no exception. So this feature seeks to explore why this should be, and what you could possibly do to help your own dog, should they have the misfortune to suffer from one.
So often digestive problems in dogs are regarded as primarily a dietary issue - i.e. what a dog can or can't tolerate eating - when in fact they usually have far more to do with the immune system in the gut, and how normally or abnormally it may be working in individual dogs. The immune malfunction/over-sensitivity element involved in digestive issues is also why dogs who have these may so often have skin issues too.
CAUSES OF A MORE ACUTE IMMUNE RESPONSE
Why is any dog’s digestive immune system not working as effectively as it should? Well first, it may have just got into the habit of over-reacting to the wrong things.
As predators and scavengers, dogs have evolved to have very strong immune reactions in the gut, to avoid what would otherwise be more harmful for them to eat. And you will notice young puppies are constantly seeking to eat all types of ‘muck’ in their immediate environment. Which may turn our stomachs, but is part and parcel of them also building an ever stronger gut immune system.
However, in our more sterile modern world, where a dog’s dietary intake is much more controlled by us from puppyhood, and tends to be free of any of the 'nasties' a dog might otherwise ingest in the wild, this powerful immune system is given far less to do. They say that when the immune system is not given enough to do, it goes looking for a fight. Which may well be one of the reasons it goes on to mount more extreme gut reactions in dogs today - e.g. allergies, more inflammatory responses - to foods that are otherwise quite harmless for them to eat, or towards less harmful bacteria in the gut.
GENETIC, STRESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
The cause of all this is thought to be a combination of genetic predisposition – i.e. some dogs being more naturally prone to this problem than others - plus the right environmental triggers. With collies there can also be the added complication of how vulnerable they can be as a breed to stress (more on this a bit later), and the effect stress exposure, even at lower level, can subsequently have on their immune responses and digestion, can be pretty significant.
From puppyhood today, our dogs are also exposed to a multitude of toxins and physiological assaults unknown to their earlier ancestors - like wormers, flea products, vaccinations - any or all of which may have some impact on their developing immune systems. The same can be said for the multiplicity of different chemicals or pollutants now at large in our modern society.
DIETARY TRIGGERS
Given how much we know the immune system, in a dog’s gut, likes to keep working, another common problem can be puppies being constantly fed the same food - or protein source - every day of their lives, until - for want of anything better to do - the immune system finally decides to mount a more extreme reaction to it. A fallout we generally term a food intolerance, sensitivity or allergy, which can develop at any age or stage in a dog’s life. For this reason I urge all owners of puppies to keep varying what they eat all the time, constantly introducing new foods and protein sources to them while they are growing. And appalling though it may often seem to us, sometimes puppies really need to eat nastier stuff in their environment - like animal poo - to get their immune system properly boosted.
CHICKEN
Whenever a puppy or dog has some kind of digestive upset, owners also are so commonly told to feed them something bland "like chicken and rice" or think this is the best thing to do. When in fact chicken can be one of the commonest foods dogs develop more extreme gut reactions to. This is because, as such a cheap protein source, it features in so many different puppy foods, adult foods and treats that your dog's exposure to it, over time, becomes intense.
So just removing this protein source alone from your dog's diet – including in any treats they eat - may go some way to alleviating their recurring gut upsets. It is certainly worth trying.
TRIAL AND ERROR
Very often owners, in desperation, will find themselves constantly playing some kind of cat and mouse game with different foods, and their dog's gut immune system; seeing how long they can feed their dog something different before their gut immune system registers it as 'alien' again, and mounts a more allergic or inflammatory response.
However this kind of trial and error process is still always worth doing, because eventually, with enough experimentation with different or more novel food or protein sources (like pork, rabbit or venison) , you may well find a combination your dog's gut immune system will happily tolerate longer term. It may also be worth trying raw food diets - many of them now commercially prepared - to see what difference these may make to your dog's digestion.
When introducing any new food or diet to a dog, however, you must do it very gradually, with small amounts at a time, to give his/her gut sufficient time to adapt to it, and also give enough time for any new diet to make a difference to a dog's gut function and health. Do not keep chopping and changing all the time, too quickly, with different food as you will never be sure which one would have made a bigger difference, longer term.
FALLOUT FROM ILLNESS OR PARASITES
Sometimes a dog’s ongoing digestive issues can result from some previous illness – classically something like pancreatitis. Not only can this damage the normal digestive enzyme function in dogs, but leave them with a condition called bacterial overgrowth, where too many ‘bad’ bacteria flourish in the gut at the expense of more benign ones, which are essential to efficient digestive function and optimum absorption of nutrients.
Thus after a bad bout of pancreatitis some dogs may need to be put on a special low fat diet for the rest of their lives, and may even need recurring courses of antibiotics to keep the gut working as healthily as possible.
Infestation with the GIARDIA parasite – especially if prolonged before being treated - can also sometimes lead to longer lasting gut issues in dogs.
STRESS AND MEDICATION
As earlier outlined, stress can often play a big part in triggering digestive upsets in collies – although these upsets may occur a day or more after the stress event itself. Stress can also lead to both poorer appetite and weight loss in these dogs, as hormones produced when a dog is stressed – cortisol, adrenaline – can act as appetite suppressants. Thus dogs like these cannot improve their appetites or weight gain until their stress levels have first been reduced.
However, if your dog's digestive upsets only occur after some period or experience of stress, at least you will be able to pinpoint this as their most common trigger.
Sometimes dogs are having to be put on repeated courses of steroids or antibiotics to keep their gut issues in check, when in fact these themselves, when used longer term, can inflict even more damage on the healthier functioning of the gut, or other organs or functions of the body. So it is always worth seeing what else you can try first before using this solution as more of a last resort.
All text © Carol Price 2024
Carol Price collie books: In the UK from: https://performancedog.co.uk/product-category/books-and-dvds/authors/carol-price/ In the USA from: https://www.dogwise.com/ # and https://www.cleanrun.com/product/border_collies_a_breed_apart_book_1_secrets_of_the_working_mind/index.cfm In Canada from https://www.4mymerles.com/product-category/books/ In Australia from: https://gameondogs.com.au/ And in the Netherlands and Belgium from: https://mediaboek.nl/border-collies-a-breed-apart-book-1.html
