Dogs with digestion problems can have an unbalanced digestive flora. This means the proportion of healthy and unhealthy bacteria that live in their gut is not well balanced. We used an experimental model to mimic the gut bacteria of dogs with soft stools. In the model, we looked at how a test product affected the gut bacteria. The test product was a mixture of baobab fruit pulp, acacia gum, a heat-killed bacteria called Lactobacillus helveticus HA-122, and parts of specific yeast strains that are no longer alive. When the test product was added, the bacteria made more healthy products like propionate compared to when it was not added. Other healthy products were increased depending on the dog’s original microbiota. The types of bacteria in the model were also different depending on whether the test product was added. There was an increase in beneficial bacteria when the test product can improve the gut flora of dogs with soft stools and this effect may vary depending on the original flora of the animal.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.