Microbiota of healthy dogs demonstrate a significant decrease in richness and changes in specific bacterial groups in response to supplementation with resistant starch, but not psyllium or methylcellulose, in a randomized cross-over trial.

Even though dietary fibres are often used as prebiotic supplements in dogs, the effect of individual types of fibres on canine microbiota composition is unknown. The objective of this study was to assess changes in faecal microbiota richness, diversity and taxonomic abundance with three different fibre supplements in dogs. These were psyllium husk, resistant starch from banana flour and methylcellulose.

Standard operating procedure reduces interoperator variation and improves accuracy when measuring packed cell volume.

Objective: To evaluate whether a standard operating procedure (SOP) for canine packed cell volume (PCV) measurement reduces operator-dependent variation and improves accuracy within a veterinary teaching hospital environment.

Materials And Methods: Clinical staff and final-year undergraduate veterinary students were recruited to perform PCV measurements in blinded duplicate samples. Participants were randomly allocated to perform this with or without an SOP.