The best dog food to prevent scooting
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Pick by your dog
Swipe ›Our picks
| Pick | Best for | Buy |
|---|---|---|
 Top pickWellness Core Grain Free dog food | best brands you can check out | Check price |
 Nulo Puppy Limited | — | Check price |
 Dr. Tim's Dog food | — | Check price |
The best dog food to prevent scooting is a high-quality food with enough fiber to keep your dog’s stools firm and bulky, because firm poop naturally presses on the anal glands and helps them empty. Good options include Wellness Core, Nulo (for puppies), and Dr. Tim’s, and keeping your dog at a healthy weight helps too. If your dog keeps scooting despite a diet change, see your vet, since full anal glands, worms, and allergies all need proper treatment.
Below is everything you need to know about scooting and how you can help prevent it by changing your dog’s food.
The best dog food to prevent scooting
While you might think that finding the right dog food to give your furry friend to prevent scooting is hard, with some sure options, it should not be that complicated. To give you some ideas, below are some of the best brands you can check out.
1Wellness Core Grain Free dog food
This one contains fiber and probiotics, which can help support firm stools and healthy digestion. It has a lot of different ingredients such as peas, chicken fat, probiotic fiber, vitamins, minerals, and more.
A lot of dog owners have said that it helped with their dogs’ anal gland troubles and that it also helped them maintain a healthy weight. Many owners also use it for dogs with sensitive skin. It’s a good all-around food that most dogs find tasty, so you might want to check it out.
2Nulo Puppy Limited
This one is made for puppies, so it’s the pick if your scooting dog is still young (adult dogs should eat an adult or all-life-stages formula). Its limited ingredient list can be helpful for puppies with sensitive skin or stomachs, and it’s suitable for both large and small breeds.
It comes with deboned turkey and has probiotics, omega fatty acids, and antioxidants that are perfect for your dog. It is made in the US. This is surely one of the best dog food to prevent scooting for you to choose from.
3Dr. Tim's Dog food
This all-natural dog food by Dr. Tim’s is made with quality ingredients and is a particularly good fit if your dog is on the athletic side and loves to run around.
Its ingredients are slow-cooked, and most dogs find it tasty, so your dog should have no problem eating it.
It’s also gentle on the digestive tract, and well-formed stools are exactly what you want for a dog that scoots.
What is scooting?
Scooting is when your dog drags their bottom along the floor or grass to relieve itching or discomfort. The most common cause is full or irritated anal glands. Other causes include worms (especially tapeworms), fleas, skin allergies, diarrhea, or poop stuck in the fur around the bum. It can look funny, but if it keeps happening, the cause needs to be found and treated.
Anal gland problems can also make it uncomfortable for your dog to sit, and if left untreated, the glands can become infected or form an abscess. Our vet-written guide to dog anal gland problems explains this in more detail.
How fiber helps
When your dog poops, a firm, bulky stool squeezes the anal glands and pushes out their fluid. Soft stools or diarrhea don’t provide that pressure, so the glands can stay full. Adding fiber helps bulk up the stool. Besides choosing a food with adequate fiber, you can ask your vet about adding a spoonful of plain canned pumpkin (not pie filling) or a psyllium fiber supplement. Increase fiber gradually, and make sure your dog always has fresh water.
Dog scooting treatment
Besides finding the right dog food, there are some ways in which you can treat your dog’s scooting problems, and below are some of them that you might want to try out.
1Wipe their bottom
One of the things that you can do is to keep their bums clean, since poop stuck in the fur can cause itching and scooting. Gently wipe the area with an unscented pet wipe after they poop if needed, and keep long fur around the bottom trimmed.
Keeping the area clean won’t empty full anal glands, though. If the glands are the problem, your vet or groomer can express them, and a fiber-rich diet can help them empty naturally. We also list foods and tips to help a dog express glands naturally.
2Help them lose weight
Sometimes, the problem could be happening internally. For example, overweight dogs are more prone to anal gland problems, as extra fat around the bottom makes it harder for the glands to empty.
At this rate, you really need to put some action to help them lose weight. The good news is that there are a lot of options for you, from the best dog food to prevent scooting above that can also double as food to help them lose weight. To set a realistic daily target, run your dog’s numbers through our calorie calculator for dogs.
Make sure that you check the ingredient list so you can see the fillers or the by-products that might be included, so you make the right choice. Going for whole foods might be the solution that you have been looking for.
3Probiotics might be the key
Probiotic supplements may help support healthy digestion and firmer stools, which in turn helps the anal sacs empty more easily. The research is still limited, but they’re generally safe to try. You can opt to buy those supplements, or you can find dog food that has probiotics in it.
Some of the foods mentioned above include them, and many other good brands do as well, so you really just need to decide which one you think would work for your dog.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, the best dog food to prevent scooting is just there to help your dog out, but you still got to do your part. For example, make sure that your dog is getting enough exercise by walking them to the park or bringing them with you. Regular exercise helps keep your dog’s digestion moving and their weight in check, so you ought to take note of that as well.
See your vet if your dog scoots for more than a couple of days, keeps licking their bottom, or if you notice swelling, redness, blood, a bad smell, or worm segments that look like grains of rice around the bum. Full or infected anal glands and worms need proper treatment, and food alone won’t fix them.
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