Calming Chews Upsetting Your Dog's Stomach?

Calming chews causing loose stools is a really common problem — most of them are packed with sweeteners or fibre-heavy fillers that sensitive dogs just don't tolerate well. How long has your Cockapoo been on them, and are they helping with the anxiety at all, or has it been a mixed picture?

Good to know they're actually doing something, that tells me the calming ingredients are working for her — it's the delivery format that's the problem. Chews almost always have bulking agents and sweeteners that cause exactly this. Is the separation anxiety pretty constant, or is it mainly around the moment you actually leave?

That's useful — she's anticipating it rather than being distressed all day, which is actually a better situation to manage. I'd switch her to Scullcap & Valerian tablets by Dorwest Herbs. They're a well-established herbal remedy, very clean ingredients, no fillers that cause digestive upset, and they work well for this kind of anticipatory anxiety in dogs who are otherwise fine once they settle. You give them about an hour before you leave, so they're doing their job right at the moment she needs it. For a Cockapoo her size, you'd be on a low dose — start with one tablet and you can go to two if needed.

It's safe for daily use — Dorwest have been making this product for decades and it's one of the few herbal calming products that's actually licensed as a veterinary medicine in the UK, not just a supplement. That said, given her anxiety is tied to a specific trigger rather than general all-day tension, using it as-needed before you leave makes more sense than daily dosing. You'll get the same benefit and you're not giving her anything she doesn't need.

Good luck with it — most dogs tolerate them really well, especially compared to chews. Give it a week or two to get a fair read, and if you find the one tablet isn't quite enough for her, moving to two is a reasonable next step before concluding it's not working.