Shih Tzu’s can get constipated, but don’t worry there are natural remedies that can help.
What to do if my Shih Tzu is constipated? There are a number of remedies you can use to relieve constipation fast for your Shih Tzu, including tinned pumpkins, Coconut oil and flax-seeds. If those natural remedies don’t work then you can try an enema.
Before we go into what you can do to help your Shih Tzu with their constipation let’s look at what actually causes might be.
What Causes Constipation In My Shih Tzu
Constipation is caused by too much or too little fiber in their diet, a lack of exercise, blocked or abscessed anal glands, an enlarged prostate gland, excessive matted hair around the anus or obesity.
If your dog eats gravel, stones, bones, dirt, plants or pieces of their toys that can also cause constipation. Whatever can get caught in their intestinal tract will also affect their digestive tract.
There are some rare things like tumors but that’s very rare and you shouldn’t normally have to worry about that, unless there’s an obvious growth.
If your pet is on any type of medication, if they have an injury to the pelvis or it could even just be part of your pets neurological disorder.
They could even be dehydrated, so you can see there are a myriad of reasons why your dog can be constipated.
If your dog has not had a bowel movement in over two days or if he’s obviously straining, crouching or even if he Yelp’s in pain when trying to go poop you should see your vet right away.
These signs may be similar to those seen in a urinary tract problem, so it’s important that you see your vet to determine the cause.
Older dogs may suffer more often from constipation, however, the condition can occur in any dog that has one or more of those reasons I have listed.
Now, depending on what caused your dog’s constipation your vet may recommend one or several of the following treatments.
Your vet might put your dog on a special high fiber food, they might ask you to exercise more or they may even give your dog an enema.
If your dog is badly constipated you can try an enema which is something that you can use at home, again you want to be real gentle with it.
Sometimes it’s better to let your veterinarian do this because the dogs already in a little bit of distress and if you try and give an enema they could bite you.
They are probably in pain so you have to use your head. As the Shih Tzu is a small toy dog you might only need to use a quarter of the enema, just squirt it up into the rectal area and then soon after that all the stool will come back out again. Again if you are not comfortable doing it yourself let your vet do it for you.
Again you want to be real gentle with it, sometimes it’s better to let your veterinarian do this because the dogs already in a little bit of distress and if you try and give an enema they could hurt you and try and bite you.
If you don’t treat the constipation your dog’s colon can empty on its own. I this state because the colon is packed with an uncomfortably large amount of feces and that’ll cause really damaging straining.
Your pet will be very tired, he’ll have appetite loss, he might even start vomiting because his digestive system is just too full.
You have to be sure it’s an accurate diagnosis, you don’t want to be giving an enema to a dog that has straining for some other reason, but if your dog has been having problems with constipation I think its first important to change their diet.
4 Natural Constipation Remedies For Your Shih Tzu
Is your Shih Tzu having difficulties going to the bathroom? In this section I’m going to give you my top three natural laxatives for your dog.
#1 Flax seed
I have three things for you and the first one is ground flaxseed. It’s a great source of fiber, also a really good source of essential fatty acids. Additionally it has about four times the equivalent amount of fiber than you would find in oatmeal.
I prefer to use ground seeds and and a dosage of about a tablespoon for forty pounds of body weight, so a little over a teaspoon for about ten pounds of body weight and would give it to my dog twice daily.
#2 Tinned Pumpkin
The next one that is often quite prevalent during Halloween which is also a super good source of fiber and is a great natural laxative and that is canned pumpkin. Pumpkin is a great natural laxative for dogs and the really good things is its nutritious.
The dosage is about a teaspoon for 10 pounds of body weight again about twice per day. If you have problems getting your dog to eat the flax seed or pumpkin add it too their food or what l like to do, especially with the pumpkin is put it on top of their paw and they just lick it off.
#3 Coconut Oil
The third remedy I use is coconut oil. The thing with the coconut oil is not all of it is gonna get absorbed, and historically that’s some of the issues with some of the other oils.
You give your dog the oil in their food, it gets absorbed into your dog’s stomach and into the small intestine.
It can act as a relaxing agent but we need part of it to make its way through and actually help loosen things up and help move things out and this can also do that.
You need to make sure you don’t overdose it as it can cause diarrhea so a pretty typical dose is somewhere around a half a teaspoon to 1 teaspoon per 10 pounds of body weight 2 to 3 times a day.
If your dog is seriously constipated and you want to get stuff moving I’d be upping the dose to 3 times a day.
4 Metamucil
If your dog is older and he has some kind of a medical problem where he’s coming in constipated a lot, you could add some Metamucil to their diet.
You can do that by putting the food in a blender and adding a Metamucil for dogs to it, mixing it up and having the dog enjoy that as a nice meal.
The thing with Metamucil is you can use it all the time to try and keep the stools normal.
So start with small amounts first of the Metamucil if you overdo it you could turn up a dog that’s constipated into a dog with diarrhea.