Why do people lose their sh*t about their dog sh*t

(Warning…lots of poop talk and a teeny tiny bit of cursing, so, like, maybe NSFW??)

Pardon me for getting so personal so quickly, but - is your poop the same every day? Every time you go? I mean, I realize sometimes dudes like to poop on a schedule, y’all do love you some routine…but that aside, it’s still not the same everyday and you know it. And why is that? Because you don’t eat the same exact meal every day…do you? Let me answer that. No, no you don’t. And there are a lot of reasons that you don’t. 

• It’d be boring as hell.
• You’d get really sick of it and eventually just not want to eat it anymore,
• No matter how healthy that meal was, if it were  the only thing you were eating over and over and over, eventually you’d be missing out on key nutrients and begin to become deficient in other key nutrients.

SO WHY ARE SO MANY OF YOU STILL FEEDING YOUR PETS THE SAME FOOD, DAY IN, DAY OUT, MORNING, EVENING, OVER AND OVER??

Here are some of the reasons:

• “Won’t he get sick if I change his food?”
• “Isn’t it not good to change her food?”
• “I have to stay on this prescription food, and only this prescription food and nothing else but this prescription food or my pet will die, so says my vet to whom I’m paying a bajillion dollars for this prescription food that actually has no ingredients in it that requires a prescription [that was never actually made to be fed permanently but no one ever bothered to tell me that…]”.
• “That’s what I’ve done with all my other pets since 1975 and they were always fine so why would I change now?”
• “I don’t want him to get diarrhea”
• “I don’t want his poop to change”
• “His poops will get messed up.”
• “What about his poops?”
• “But the poops”
• “OMG poooooooooooop”

So I’m here to ask you this: 

Why do we completely lose our shit over our dogs getting the shits?!?!?

Ok, I get it: you don’t want to have your pup experience gastrointestinal upset - no one likes to have a bellyache. But somewhat softer stools aren’t always indicative of stomach upset, and soft stool doesn’t always mean diarrhea, and one day of diarrhea doesn’t always mean tragedy. 

Now listen: trust and believe, as a pet mom to SIX pets, two of whom have quite enormous poops, I get not wanting to clean up any potential accidents or have to wake up during the night due to someone being a poopski. But what I get even more is wanting my pets to have a healthy gut biome and a really long life filled with really exciting foods in their bowl, meals they look forward to, and knowing that their nutritional profile is filled with all of the amino acids, essential vitamins, minerals, and fats that their bodies need. And, as you know as a regular reader of this blog (I hope), I’m also just a huge pet food nerd…and it’s fun to watch them explore new tastes, textures, proteins and formulas, seeing what makes for happy wags and tail flicks, fast bowl clean-outs and sometimes slower, more “contemplative” “mom-what-the-heck-are-you-trying-to-pull” mealtimes (where I learn what to definitely  cut out of our rotation!). It is mentally stimulating for your pets to explore new smells, textures and, of course, tastes, and offering any form of enrichment is always top of the list of what we encourage here at Queenie’s Pets!!

The top benefits of a rotational diet aren’t just for dogs and cats!

This holds true no matter whether  we are talking dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, turtles, or even fish! In the wild, there absolutely ARE some animals who only eat 1-2 things (hello, koalas, you weird, beautiful creatures, you). However, most of the billions of species of this world live by eating what they come upon and/or seek out - which is how they have survived. 

• Promotes Nutritional Diversity
• Reduces the Risk of Food Sensitivities
• Prevents Nutritional Deficiencies
• Enhances Digestive Health
• Enriches Mental Stimulation, Enhanced Appetite and Mealtime Excitement
• Mimicking Natural Feeding Patterns
• Weight Management

There are just so many benefits to a rotational diet, that they far outweigh the chance of your pet having a bout of the re-re (that’s pet pro speak for diarrhea, because, you know…I’m nothing if not professional). 

And here’s a secret I’m about to reveal to you (and it’s not even clickbait!): the better you get at rotational feeding, the less frequently your pet’s belly will get upset from any changes! 

You heard it here first. So, if they’ve never had a rotational diet, we have plenty of helpful supplements to help with the transitioning in our shop, and we’ll guide you through doing it slowly (heck, probiotics and some pumpkin never hurt anyone’s belly anytime!). But let’s stop fretting about the poopskis and let’s START building the happiest, healthiest gut biomes this side of Philly (or wherever you’re reading this from, who knows, we may start shipping….shhhh) has ever seen. 

Then all of us can stop losing our shit so much over our pets’ shit!!!