This is a specific conversation about Dog gut health — probiotics and digestive support — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
A paste refusal after two days is really common — the texture and smell put a lot of dogs off, and Shih Tzus in particular can be stubborn once they've decided something is wrong. Probiotics can make a genuine difference for dogs, but quality and strain specificity vary enormously, and what helps one dog may do nothing for another. Before I point you toward something that's much more likely to work for your dog, can you tell me: what symptoms prompted you to try a probiotic in the first place — loose stools, wind, general digestive upset? And has your vet been involved at all, or is this something you've been managing yourself?
She's been having soft stools on and off for a few months. Not terrible, just never quite firm. The vet checked her over about six weeks ago, said nothing serious, suggested trying a probiotic. That's when we bought the paste but she flatly refused it after day two and it got everywhere.
inparticular.ai
Good — vet sign-off is exactly the right starting point, and soft stools without a clear underlying cause is precisely the kind of low-level digestive wobble where probiotics often do help. The paste problem is straightforward to solve. What you want is a powder format — it mixes invisibly into food, has no texture, and most dogs never notice it. For an 8-year-old Shih Tzu with this kind of chronic soft stool issue, I'd look at Enterococcus faecium SF68, which is the strain in Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diets FortiFlora for Dogs. It's the most clinically studied probiotic strain in dogs, it's what vets reach for most often, and the sachet format means you just sprinkle it over her meal — no mess, no wrestling. Is she on a wet or dry food diet? That affects how easy it is to introduce.
She's on dry kibble mostly, with a bit of wet food mixed in at dinner. Would the powder actually stick to dry kibble or just fall to the bottom of the bowl?
inparticular.ai
It does tend to settle a bit on dry kibble, which is why the wet food at dinner is actually perfect timing — sprinkle the FortiFlora sachet over her evening meal when the wet food is in the mix, and it binds to it well. Many owners also add a teaspoon of warm water to dry kibble before adding the powder, which helps it coat the pieces. One sachet per day is the standard dose regardless of size, so an 8-year-old Shih Tzu is straightforward. You'd typically run it for 4 weeks and see whether the stool consistency improves — most owners notice a difference within 10 to 14 days if it's going to work. The product I'd go with is Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diets FortiFlora Canine, available in boxes of 30 sachets on Amazon UK. It's not cheap per sachet, but it's the one with the evidence behind it.
That sounds much more manageable than the paste. Is there anything else I should be doing alongside it, or is the probiotic enough on its own?
inparticular.ai
For a case like this, the probiotic is a sensible first move on its own — adding multiple things at once makes it impossible to know what's working. That said, if the FortiFlora doesn't resolve it after a full month, the next step worth discussing with your vet is a prebiotic fibre addition, or switching to a single-protein kibble to rule out a low-grade food sensitivity — both are common in Shih Tzus. For now, consistent feeding times, no scraps, and the daily FortiFlora sachet is a clean, simple protocol. Give it the full four weeks before you judge it.
