# Does lamb heart or tripe cause the runs?



## Rua (Jan 2, 2012)

Juno has been perfect in the poo department for the past few weeks up until yesterday. She suddenly started having the runs. Then I awoke to the nightmare of her crate this morning where she'd had a couple of very runny poo accidents. Nooooooooooo! 

The only thing different I've given her this week was a lambs heart two days ago and a couple dehydrated green tripe sticks as a treat yesterday. She also ate a small amount of peanut butter in her Kong. 

Her runs are seriously liquidy. It's awful! But she's otherwise in great form. Running around and playing as usual. 

Do any of the above things cause the runs in anyone elses dogs? Can your dog get the runs from something they ate a couple days prior?


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## ZAYDA (Apr 22, 2010)

How much lamb heart did you give her.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

Heart is extremely rich. I only feed a small amount of it. Tripe on the other hand is nutritious but usually doesn't cause digestive upset. Hope the poo firms up quickly...slippery elm bark(2 capsules 1/2 hour before feeding) will help heal the gut if it gets so irritated by the diarrhea.


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## Rua (Jan 2, 2012)

ZAYDA said:


> How much lamb heart did you give her.


Ehhhh.............I feel really stupid for saying this, but the whole heart. :blush: I know I know! Big mistake. In my weak defence I'd just gotten home from shopping and had the bag of hearts in my hand. Juno was going mad for one. I was gonna take it in the house to cut it up and give her only a bit, but there was a hole in the bag and one fell out and she nabbed it and ran off into the garden. I left her to it, since she'd only had a very small breakfast that morning, but at the back of my mind I had this nagging feeling that giving her the whole thing was probably not a good idea. Funny thing is that it took a full day before the runs showed up.

Lesson learned!!

That's good to know about the tripe though. Cuz she LOVES LOVES those tripe sticks and they are the only source of green tripe I can get over here at the moment. I'll try out the slippery elm bark too.


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## MacyGSD (Dec 22, 2011)

You can get green tripe and all sorts of goodies from Home Page - K9 Kraving - The Healthiest Feeding Alternative that's where I get Macy's stuff and she loves it!


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## Rua (Jan 2, 2012)

I would do that, but shipping to Ireland from the US is a killer. And anytime I've tried getting stuff sent over, customs gets me and I have to pay 23% tax on whatever is shipped in. So I generally stick to ordering stuff within the EU. No customs charges and the shipping is reasonable.

Sometimes being living on an island can be really frustrating though. Especially when all my favourite American people food isn't available here - like JIF peanut butter. And Beef Jerky. And Cheetos. God, I miss Cheetos.


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## Courtney (Feb 12, 2010)

Rua said:


> I would do that, but shipping to Ireland from the US is a killer. And anytime I've tried getting stuff sent over, customs gets me and I have to pay 23% tax on whatever is shipped in. So I generally stick to ordering stuff within the EU. No customs charges and the shipping is reasonable.
> 
> Sometimes being living on an island can be really frustrating though. Especially when all my favourite American people food isn't available here - like JIF peanut butter. And Beef Jerky. And Cheetos. God, I miss Cheetos.


A buddy needs to send you a carepackage full of goodies!


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## Holmeshx2 (Apr 25, 2010)

Lamb hearts aren't all that big. I give Jinx whole lamb hearts whole pork hearts (pork is easily twice the size of the lamb) I will do my entire MM (about 10 oz or so) of beef heart the pork hearts now are around 13-14 oz. I personally wouldn't think a lamb heart which is MAYBE 6 ounces being the cause of it. I would look into something else for sudden onset of watery diarrhea. Or maybe you fed the pup too much during the day/ Also what is in the tripe treats? There may be something else in it and your pup had too many. Not sure but for a younger pup there could be a few issues (coccidia and giardia come to mind)


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## BritneyP (Oct 26, 2006)

Holmeshx2 said:


> Lamb hearts aren't all that big. I give Jinx whole lamb hearts whole pork hearts (pork is easily twice the size of the lamb) I will do my entire MM (about 10 oz or so) of beef heart the pork hearts now are around 13-14 oz. I personally wouldn't think a lamb heart which is MAYBE 6 ounces being the cause of it. I would look into something else for sudden onset of watery diarrhea. Or maybe you fed the pup too much during the day/ Also what is in the tripe treats? There may be something else in it and your pup had too many. Not sure but for a younger pup there could be a few issues (coccidia and giardia come to mind)



Agreed with all of the above! 

I regularly feed heart as an entire MM meal, and have never had digestive upsets. Heart isn't considered organ meat, so you don't have to worry about feeding too much of it like liver and kidneys.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

It depends on the age/size of the dog to say a whole lamb heart is an 'ok' portion...I'd never feed a full beef heart to an adult. 
A pup may get runny poo from a whole lamb heart/especially if not use to it...an adult may digest it just fine. 
It is considered MM, but still rich in content.


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## Lauri & The Gang (Jun 28, 2001)

Rua said:


> ...
> The only thing different I've given her this week was a lambs heart two days ago and a couple dehydrated green tripe sticks as a treat yesterday. She also ate a small amount of peanut butter in her Kong.
> 
> ...
> ...



The #1 reason for loose stools in a raw fed dog is OVERfeeding. Very rarely is it caused by ingredients.


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## Rua (Jan 2, 2012)

As of late last night, she was back to normal. 

I gave her three small meals yesterday and that seemed to put things right again. Now that you've mentioned the overfeeding, I think that was the culprit. The day she got the runs had been a manically busy one, but she'd eaten a fair bit of food. She'd had a larger than normal chicken leg that day that was rather massive. (Seriously, these chicken legs I got are like the size of a small child.) And she ate the whole thing in one go. (Normally she'd only eat half in the morning and half in the evening with her other stuff.)

Poor little dote. It's a wonder she survives me at all.


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## Holmeshx2 (Apr 25, 2010)

Jane I agree with age but the fact is even at 14 weeks a 6 oz meal should be fine and lamb hearts. I agree I would never do a whole beef heart those things are HUGE I wouldn't do a whole pork heart at that age either but lamb should be fine.

Rua it was probably just over feeding that did it from the sound of it and don't feel bad we have all made plenty of mistakes in feeding training and just general upkeep of our pups. They forgive better then us and I'm sure she isn't thinking ill of you for getting lots of food lol.

I did the "rough measuring" for awhile and my girl needed to lose a few pounds. I had a bad scale and if something was 3-4 ounces over I just ignored it instead of cutting it smaller then it got where you had to push a tiny bit to feel her ribs nothing major but she still needed to lose a few. So I just got a better scale and made sure I fully measured everything and made sure she was getting the proper portions and shes looking great. I think with raw it's really easy to just throw a whole piece of something down on occasion and not think about it again but as you saw sometimes tummies can't handle it.


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