My dog is scooting. How much and what type of fiber do they need?

Yes, you need either a high fibre diet such as "fibre response" from royal canin or a fibre supplement such as Pro Fibre from Protexin, this should help solidify the faeces and should solve the anal gland issue.

I recommend a product called Glandex that seems to work well. You give it to them every day. It comes in a powered form and a chewy treat form. A word of caution about grain free diets. I often see dogs who have anal gland issues or constipation issues on these diets. I think it must be related to the fiber. There can be other concerns as well but the majority of dogs on these diets do just fine. However, most dogs do not have food allergies (less than 10% of ALL allergies are to food). Additionally, most of these food allergy dogs are allergic to protein, not grains. I do recommend a high quality food such as Royal Canin or Purina Pro Plan. Lastly, it doesn’t make a difference if the food is canned or kibble. It’s all about the fiber amount and quality. I hope this is helpful and please feel free to post any additional questions.

For anal gland infections or glands that fill up on a regular basis that need to be expressed regularly, I recommend the below products. Both products can be found online and I find that Glandex works the best. I hope this helps Buddy! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be happy to help you further! 1. Glandex 2. NaturVet No Scoot

Hello and thank you for reaching out to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I'm sorry to hear that Bits is having diarrhea and scooting on the carpet. I recommend offering a bland diet such as boiled chicken and rice (in a ratio of 1 part meat to 2 parts rice) for the next few days to help bulk up his stool. You can also try mixing in 1/8 of a teaspoon of Metamucil into his food twice daily. This is a fiber supplement that can be purchased from a human pharmacy (purchase the original, unflavored kind). If his diarrhea persists for longer than a couple days, or if you ever see blood in the diarrhea, I recommend having him evaluated by your veterinarian, as there could be a more serious underlying cause. Common causes of diarrhea include intestinal parasites, inflammatory bowel disease, liver disease, infection, and in older dogs, cancer. The scooting may be due to irritation from the diarrhea, or due to full anal glands. Your veterinarian will be able to perform a physical and rectal examination and express his anal glands, if needed. I hope this is helpful!

You can feed her any good quality wet food, preferably pate style, and add some canned pumpkin. Or search for "High Fiber Canned Cat Food" in your browser. The ROYAL CANIN Feline Gastrointestinal HE canned cat food is one, for example.

If her stools are solid then she probably doesn't need more fibers, the anal glands are expressed naturally when the stools pass out, if the stools are too soft then the effect of emptying the anal glands is greatly reduced. if this is the case then yes she could benefit from more fibers, there is a special food called Royal Canin fiber response that usually helps a lot with this issue.

Sometimes increasing the fiber in the diet can help the anal glands express on their own, so supplementing the diet with Metamucil could help. I typically recommend starting at 1/2 to 1 tsp of unflavored Metamucil per day.