With everyone stuck indoors, its no surprise that folks have become more aware of their pets’ gas problems. I am certainly fielding a lot of questions about it. While often hilarious, especially to kids, sometimes it is bad enough for owners to hit a terminal point of frustration. Luckily, there is a science behind dog toots and several options to decrease them.
Most of the gas within the intestinal tract is fairly benign. It can be air swallowed as the normal part of ingesting a meal, some gases diffuse in from the blood stream, and some just come from the normal biochemical breakdown of food. This represents over 99% of gases and it is odorless. The rest is produced by bacteria in the colon as it breaks down certain ingredients. As the rhymes of our youth regarding legumes tell us, production of flatulence is largely diet-related. However, the type and amount of gas depends on the individual and the normal bacteria residing in their intestinal tact (the gut flora). The food most readily undergoing this breakdown is dietary fiber. Normally, fiber is a very helpful part of the diet. It helps absorb excess minerals and substances like cholesterol. It also helps maintain the health of the gut flora which is so important in many functions within the body. However, if a pet is ingesting too much of a particular fiber or has an excess of a particularly efficient gas-producing bacteria (or both….), the result can be room-clearing.
The first solution to the problem is to change or reduce the fiber types within the diet. One of the most common sources of pet food fiber is the pulp leftover from sugar-beet processing. It is very healthy and inexpensive. It is also one of the biggest culprits for producing noxious gas. It is difficult these days to find foods without it, but they exist. After that, we look to eliminate soy and peas. It’s also good to be aware of treats that have dried fruits as part of their ingredients. When these changes fail, we look to “low residue” diets which are meant to have almost all the food digested and absorbed before reaching the colon. Many of these require a prescription. Along this process, we also usually recommend smaller, more-frequent meals. This prevents having excess food from sitting and fermenting in the guts from larger meals, especially with dogs who gulp their food.
If these changes fail to solve the problem, we are stuck with trying actual treatments. Zinc acetate and Yucca shidigera supplements both bind to the sulfhydryl compounds in flatulence and can deodorize the gas. These are both available over the counter. Dog-specific probiotics also help. In theory, these bacteria compete for space with the gas-producing bacteria and decreases the size of the gas-factory workforce. There are many knock-off and fake probiotics that don’t even have any live bacteria, so check with your vet for one of the recommended brands. One medication that is often grabbed by owners but rarely works is Gas-X or simethicone. While the name implies that it eliminates gas, it’s real job is to decrease gas bloating in the stomach and smaller intestines. It does so by making large bubbles smaller to get them to the colon faster. So, the amount of gas produced by the dog remains unchanged.