Steps can help reduce how often pets break wind

As a pet owner under gas attack from your four-footed friend, have you been there, smelled that and wished you hadn’t?

My friend, prominent New York-based physician Dr. Mehmet Oz – who along with Dr. Michael Roizen, wrote the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book, “You: The Owner’s Manual” – broke ground when they educated America on an “Oprah” appearance about how normal it was for men and, yes, women to break wind.

In case you missed their appearance or haven’t yet read the book, the average person passes gas about 14 times a day.

In humans, whether gas is produced by beans, beer or boiled cabbage, or in pets by low-quality pet foods or from the contents of a raided garbage can, most gas comes courtesy of the fermentation of certain foods by the gazillions of bacteria in the intestinal system.

In a peer-reviewed study, an article published in the 2001 Compendium, Dr. Phil Roudebush of Hill’s Pet Nutrition, a veterinarian and diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine reported that odorless gasses (nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane) make up 99 of the intestinal gas of both pets and people. The characteristic unpleasant, noxious odor that makes some proud but repulses most arises primarily from trace amounts of volatile sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide.

Underestimations of the frequency, makeup, smell or lack thereof of passed gas aren’t the only flatulence falsehoods.

First of all, passing gas and flatulence aren’t synonymous.

Flatulence is the excessive formation of gasses in the stomach or intestine.

Roudebush explains the four expressions of flatulence in descending order of occurrence are abdominal distention (bloat), borborygmus (gurgling sounds), flatus (passing gas) and finally, belching.

For both dogs and cats, aerophagia (excessive swallowing of air) is the most common cause of excessive gastrointestinal gas and may be difficult to manage with dietary changes alone.

Flatus (passing gas) is most commonly caused by bacterial fermentation in the large colon of foods that contain a lot of fiber or poorly digestible protein or foods that contain large amounts of nonabsorbable oligosaccharides (sugars found in soybeans, beans, peas and other legumes).

Roudebush’s study also found that intestinal gas production is also increased by fresh or dried foods containing fructose, resistant starches and fermentable fiber (e.g., apples, grapes, prunes, raisins, bananas).

Flatus is also common in adult dogs and cats fed excessive amounts of lactose-containing foods such as cheese, milk or ice cream.

“Flatus is often an objectionable problem for dog owners but is not usually associated with more serious underlying problems,” says Roudebush.

If it is a problem, a veterinarian will look at a history of diet change, dietary indiscretion (ate something it wasn’t supposed to), specific foods (perhaps a new treat or supplement) or a change in feeding or eating (new pet in house caused the pet to eat faster and swallow more air in doing so).

To manage patients with flatulence, veterinarians may take one or more of the following steps:

“ Control aerophagia – Feed several small meals daily; discourage rapid or competitive eating; and feed a mixture of moist and dry foods.

“ Decrease substances that cause noxious gas production – Change dietary protein sources; decrease dietary protein levels; eliminate vitamin, mineral or fat supplements; avoid onions, nuts or cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts; and avoid canned pet foods that contain carrageenan.

“ Decrease intestinal gas production – Feed a highly digestible food; change to foods with rice as the sole or predominant carbohydrate source; avoid foods containing ingredients from legumes; eliminate vitamin, mineral or fat supplements; avoid foods containing lactose; and avoid fresh or dried fruits.

“ Increase activity and exercise – This generally results in fewer problems with flatus. Walk dogs outdoors within 30 minutes of meals to encourage defecation and elimination of intestinal gas.

Whereas flatus may just result in guffaws, belching can be a serious matter.

“Belching (burping) in dogs should not be discounted, as it is a risk factor for canine bloat and should be considered a serious issue in dogs,” Roudebush said. (Bloat that results in torsion of the stomach is a life-threatening, emergency condition in dogs.)

If you have a feline gas passer, because cats are small, they usually have less olfactory impact on the human family than, let’s say, a 75-pound. Labrador retriever. But that’s not always the case.

Diana Nelson of Milwaukie, Ore., says she had a Devon Rex kitten named Isis who had toxic gas that could clear a room faster than if you yelled “Fire!”

We can summarize feline flatulence by saying it’s relatively rare in cats and even more rarely a problem.

If your cat has excessive gas, it could mean a serious medical problem like inflammatory bowel disease, food sensitivity, pancreatic insufficiency or lactose intolerance and you should have your cat checked by a veterinarian, Roudebush said.

But whether it is loud or the “silent but deadly” type, passing gas is a normal part of being alive. You can reduce some of it, but for the rest, all you can do is hold your breath and keep your sense of humor.