About canine inflammatory bowel disease

A syndrome (a group of symptoms) as opposed to a disease, dog inflammatory bowel disease can manifest itself as either Colitis or Crohn’s disease. The thing that the two have in common is chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract (the GI tract).

A painful and debilitating condition, IBD generally results from either a bacterial infection or a protein in your dog’s food causing chronic inflammation. This in turn causes a reaction in your dog’s gut, (its stomach together with its small and large intestine), which in turn interferes with its ability to digest and absorb nutrients. This results in vomiting or diarrhoea.

Vomiting if the inflammation is in the stomach, diarrhoea if the inflammation is in the intestines. And both vomiting and diarrhoea if the whole of the gut is affected

Colitis

Colitis can be defined as inflammation of the lining of the colon. This can be further sub-categorised as ulcerative colitis when the bowel lining ulcerates. Colitis is generally limited to the outer layers of the colon wall.

Crohn’s disease

Crohn’s disease generally affects the inner or deeper layers of the bowel wall, and can be present anywhere in the digestive tract from the mouth through to the rectum and anus.

Associated digestive problems

Dog inflammatory bowel disease is strongly linked with food sensitivities and leaky gut syndrome. This being the case, if your dog is suffering from IBD, it’s important that all these issues are addressed. This problems can only be cured by a qualified dog nutritionist. As well meaning as vets are, drugs such as Metronidazole are never going to make your sick dog well.

About this guide

This guide will help you create a homemade diet which will benefit your dog inflammatory bowel disease. It comes complete with details on how to put together a homemade diet for your dog, a list of the ingredients you can use, a number of suggested supplements and a couple of recipes to get you started.

If I can help with your dog inflammatory bowel disease, please book a consultation.