Puppy sick

[Malinda]

My doodle is 1 year old and every 2 months his whole body clears out via diarreah and throwing up, he tested positive for giardia when he was 4 months old and then again at 7 months. It's really hard to test for and get rid of since the parasite sheds only at certain times. We finally got him on the strongest meds possible and got rid of it. We thought he was good until after 3 months of being rid of this parasite it happened again, this time all over my house while I was at work. Poor dog and carpets :(. I am at a loss now of what to do after several vet visits and they are not sure what is wrong with him. Everything seems normal, blood tests, stool samples , everything.

He's been on good food that he has been fine on as well. His symptoms seem like IBD from what I have read online but wanted to see if anyone else has had this issue with diarreah, and intense straining once ever couple months :(

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Check out the food group or the health and medical group, there are lots of posts from people who have puppies with similar problems, hope your puppy feels better!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Have you been giving a good probiotic? That's essential. 

[Malinda]

I did that for a while but he still had the episode, I can try it up again, I need to find a good brand! I heard raw goats milk is good? I just bought that from this great doc market near me.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

No, goat's milk, raw or otherwise, is not going to replenish a good colony of bacteria in the gut. All those antibiotics destroyed the good bacteria in his gut along with the bad. There are no probiotics in goat's milk. Order Proviable DC online. 

Probiotics must contain at least 5 billion live cultures per dose to be effective, they must be continued for at least several weeks after the meds are discontinued, and they must be given at least 2 hours apart from the meds. 

As Jessica mentioned, we have lots of people here whose dogs have had these issues, and we have dozens if not hundreds of discussions in the Health Group and the Food Group about this. He needs to be on a good limited ingredient diet, and he needs probiotics.

But if in fact it is Inflammatory Bowel Disease, he needs to be under the care of a veterinary internal medicine specialist. 

[Malinda]

Ok thank you! We are literally desperate for anything to solve this.
We will order the probiotics and were told to switch
Him to a protein his body is not used to, so
We are going to slowly switch him toe signature -Kangaroo before
Taking him into the specialist and will see if all of this
Helps. Thank you!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Do not do the food switch slowly. That's only going to cause more trouble. If they are suspecting a food intolerance, he's going to continue to react as long as he's still getting the proteins that are causing the problem, and you will basically be wasting a novel protein source. I'd wait to switch food until you get the probiotics started and hopefully see some improvement in his stool, and then switch cold turkey. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

And you will also need to stop any treats or chews that contain any animal proteins, too. Please join us in the Food Group for help with this. 

[Malinda]

Thank you so much! He's been on the ID wet food since the incident happened , so off of Acana lamb for 2 weeks, and I have been mixing a half cup of kangaroo

[Malinda]

With the Id. But I can definitely switch him fully over to kangaroo asappppp. The probiotics are arriving from Amazon tomorrow and I will start them as soon as they get here!!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Do you know if they did a GI panel when they did the blood tests?

[Malinda]

Yes he did and everything was normal.. So strange, and I also feel like if he still has giardia it's really hard to test for and the vet won't treat him as if he has that, he's just on standard metronidazole for 10 days to soothe the stomach

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Well that's a good sign....often if the dog does have IBD the GI panel will show cobalamin or folate deficiencies.  The GI panel is a very specific test that is sent to Texas A&M to be read.  It is not included in the typical array of diagnostic blood tests, so you may want to ask your Vet to be sure.  For now I agree that getting him on a good Probiotic is key along with finding the right food.  Please keep us posted.  I know from experience how frustrating this can be.