Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Rumbly in her tumbly

I came home from work Tuesday night and I could hear the dog growling before I saw her. Specifically, her gut was growling.

Uh-oh.

Long before this blog, Tinky-Winky spent a week in hospital with "hemorrhagic enteritis", so I'm a little paranoid about rumbly in her tumbly. However, she was clearly not uncomfortable, not wishing to go out just then, and not throwing up. In fact, she lay down with me for a nap and fell asleep right away, with her gut growling like an angry tiger. In a way, it was comical.

When we went for our evening walk, her stool was normal, and the walking toned down the rumbling for a while, but it came back when we got home. She went to bed with her gut still rumbly. In the morning, she was fine again.

Hmmmm...

My theory is, it's because she had milk Monday night. Some times she craves milk, so I offer it to her periodically in case she's needing it. Then she drinks a few ounces of it and she's off it for a while again. And I know she's not lactose intolerant, because she eats cheese and she's fine with it, so what I figure is, she doesn't have the right bacteria in her intestine to process milk. Why? Because I had that problem in my early twenties. I grew up drinking lots of milk, then went through two or three years of almost no milk, and when I started up again, I'd get the same thing she had. Finally I went to the doctor about it and that's what he said: not enough bacteria, eat lots of yogurt to replenish the milk-digesting bacteria. I ate yogurt for a week and I haven't had a problem digesting milk ever since.

So, I'm thinking next time the dog is craving milk, I'm going to give her yogurt instead, and see if that solves the rumbly in her tumbly.

2 comments:

jenna said...

Or you could try putting probiotics on her food every day and then see what happens the next time she has milk. Probiotics are GREAT for dogs.

Mongoose said...

Yogurt is way easier to find though, especially up here.