Poo's Clues

It's not pretty. We all make it. And it can be a goldmine of information.

To quote the TV show Scrubs: "If you wanna know what's wrong with you, it all comes down to number two!"

Not quite - but it highlights the wonders of stool. Poop. Doo doo. Feces. Stool is what's left over after your body has absorbed what it can from what you eat. The body also adds some fun stuff of its own on the way through.

You wanna know the major reason poo is brown? Stercobilin. It's a leftover metabolite of hemoglobin (the red color to your blood). The bacteria in the gut process it and it turns brown. Thus, COLOR of your poo is valuable. Orange, tan, white, gray, or black all mean something. (orange = jaundice? Black = digested blood or pepto-bismol? gray/greasy = undigested fats?)

In our companion pets, presence or absence of diarrhea is pretty important. Most dogs and cats eat a very regular diet. They should, therefore, produce normal, regular stool. Anything that speeds up the transit of stuff through the gut, the composition of the stuff in the gut, or interferes with the digestion of the stuff in the gut can create abnormal stools.

For instance: Giardia - this is a little single-celled parasite that infects the small intestines. It sits down on the lining of the gut and essentially clogs the works up. Food can't be digested. It makes it downstream to the colon where the colon bacteria throw a big kegger of a party and you get blow-out diarrhea. Similarly, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBS in people) or intestinal tumors may cause the gut to fail in absorption of nutrients with the same outcome I mention above.

On the other end of the spectrum, constipation can also be important to identify. Anytime the stool is not allowed to pass before too much water is reabsorbed by the colon, you get constipation. Severe cases of constipation result in an inability to pass stools known as obstipation. Fiber, most specifically insoluble fiber, stimulates the colon muscles to contract and helps keep the poo on the move. Fiber is fantastic stuff. It's as important to our geriatric pets as it is to us people. Most of us don't get enough fiber, our colons turn in to saggy bags and we have all kinds of problems with constipation when we get old. FEED YOUR COLON FIBER. Seriously.

Constipation is a problem we see more often in cats. Cats are known to have motility problems in their colons and they just don't move things through very well. In advanced cases, this lack of movement wears out the colon muscles and in severe cases, the colon stops contracting and becomes very, very large. Those guys sometimes need surgery to remove the colon. Less severe cases can be managed with diet and medications to convince the colon to contract better.

One VERY important thing that your veterinarian should be asking you for each year is a stool sample from your dog or cat. Just because you have an "indoor" cat or dog doesn't mean you shouldn't have the stool checked. I've found roundworms in the stools of "indoor" only cats on several occasions. Each time the owner was shocked to hear this. Roundworms are important because they are zoonotic - meaning WE can pick them up! Cat's can continue to self-amplify whatever they have since they always use the same bathroom (litterbox), so sometimes little infections become big infections.

A fresh stool sample can be processed and looked at under a microscope. The type and number of bacteria, parasite eggs, parasites, types of white cells, and presence of starch or fats can all give clues as to the overall health of your pet. Even more critically is the issue that some of these parasites are the type that WE CAN GET THEM. Roundworms, hookworms, and giardia to name a few.

Anytime you visit your veterinarian for diarrhea in your pet - MAKE SURE AND BRING A SAMPLE. It makes life so much easier.

See - you never knew poo could be so cool.

AMH