A paste is the format for the day it actually happens. Powders and tablets are for a dog whose digestion is unreliable in general; a syringe of paste is what you reach for at eleven at night when something has gone through them and you want to do something about it before morning.

Bugalugs build this around Enterococcus faecium — a licensed gut flora stabiliser, declared at 2 x 10¹¹ CFU per kg — with kaolin at 324,500 mg per kg as a binding agent and acacia gum alongside it. The composition is refined soya oil, pectin, dried oligofructose and dextrose, so the prebiotic and the probiotic are both in there. The analysis gives crude protein 0.8%, crude fibre 0.2%, crude fat 38% and crude ash 32.8%. It is beef flavoured, using a synthetic flavouring at 230 mg per kg.

• 60ML syringe
• Enterococcus faecium at 2 x 10¹¹ CFU/kg
• Kaolin at 324,500 mg/kg as a binder
• Prebiotic oligofructose with the probiotic
• Crude fat 38%, crude ash 32.8%
• Beef flavoured

Know when this is the wrong thing to reach for. A one-off upset in an otherwise well dog is what a paste like this is for. Blood in the stool, repeated vomiting, a dog who is flat, painful, not drinking, or a puppy or an old dog with diarrhoea that has gone on more than a day — those are all vet calls, and dehydration in a small animal moves faster than people expect. Reaching for a paste instead of a phone is the mistake worth avoiding. If it is not clearly improving within a day or two, ring.

Who it's for: the cupboard, for the day it is needed — and for dogs coming off antibiotics or through a known upset.