Please help I am at a loss

[Patrick Windsor II]

Hello, I have a 6 month male Golden Doddle that has had a chronic problem with diarrhea. When he was about 3 months he had bought with Giardia and our vet gave him some pills and a powder I put on his food. Ever since then there is maybe one day a week where his stool is semi firm, but then we cycle back to liquid stool for the remaining 5-6 days. I have brought him back to the vet at least two times a month since then with a sample of his stool and they say they do not see anything, but they go ahead and give me the powder and pills again. I have tried pumpkin (which the vet says does not really help as there is not that much fiber in it to make a difference) and a probiotic and nothing seems to work. What is odd is that it is very cyclical, specifically on Tuesday's and Wednesdays its worse. Last night he woke me up at 3:30 am then again at 4:00 am then again at 4:30. We go outside and he has gas with the liquid stool. It will continue like this for a few days and by friday it will be back to a semi hard stool (similar in substance to  soft serve ice cream).

He has been eating the Blue Buffalo Wilderness Puppy Chicken Recipe Grain-Free Dry Dog Food and I mix in a spoon of the Blue Buffalo Wilderness canned food. Out of desperation, yesterday I switched his food to Castor & Pollux Organix Chicken, Brown Rice & Flaxseed Puppy Dry Dog Food supplemented with a spoon full of their canned dog food. His first meal with that was dinner last night and at 3:30 we started with the diarrhea again. He did eat it again this morning, but I did NOT supplement it with the canned food. I know I should have eased into the new food, but I am so desperate to help him I just did an immediate switch.

Anyone who can provide any insight? It would be much appreciated

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Patrick, a lot of people here have struggled with ongoing giardia. There are tons of posts here with lots of info for you, if you do a search.

It would be helpful to know the exact kinds of pills, powder, and probiotics you have used. 

Basically, there are two parts to clearing giardia: using the right meds to effectively get rid of it without creating an ongoing bacterial imbalance in the gut, and disinfecting the environment to be sure the dog doesn't become reinfected. Outdoor supervision of the puppy is also crucial. 

Unfortunately, many vets prescribe repeated courses of metronidazole (flagyl). This can actually cause ongoing diarrhea once the drug is discontinued. Metronidazole is not the most effective treatment for giardia, and because it destroys all of the good bacteria  int he gut which is necessary for normal stool formation, once the meds are discontinued, the dog has chronic diarrhea. This cycle can also lead to serious GI disease down the road. So a good probiotic must be given, one with at least 5 billion live cultures per dose, it must be given separately from the meds by at least two hours, and it must be continued for several weeks after the meds are discontinued. 

The drug of choice for treating giardia is Panacur. It sounds like your vet may have given you both Panacur and metro. 

Food really doesn't have much to do with giardia treatment, but for a dog with chronic diarrhea, you want a bland, easy to digest diet, which means either a homemade diet or a limited ingredient commercial food. The Castor & Pollux was definitely not the right choice. All that rice and flaxseed is not what you want, lol. 

But if the diarrhea is caused by either a parasite or a bacterial imbalance, no food is going to make a difference. 

I really can't explain the cyclical aspect, unless there is something about your household's schedule that causes extra stress on those days. Stress can exacerbate diarrhea. 

Once you give us the names of the meds and probiotics, i can give you some suggestions for what to do moving forward. 

[Patrick Windsor II]

Sure, here is what he has had over the past few months, please note that he tested positive for giardia only once when he was about 4 months, subsequent tests were negative including the one from last week. So about 3 weeks ago they gave him the following and I also started him on the pro biotic, but I stopped giving it to him as it did not seem to help and I thought it also be contributing.. Again here is what he got 3 weeks ago:

• Bayer Expert Care Probiotic Soft Chews Dog Supplement
• Powder - Panacur
• Pill - Metronidazole

Then last week they changed the meds and put him on:

• Pill - Virbantel
• Powder - Panacur

Each time the Panacur was given for three consecutive days.

Once again, just so there is no confusion, he has not tested positive for anything since his first test when he was 3 months. They tell me they give the meds in case the test is a false negative.

I hope that helps and I appreciate the assistance.

 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Well, the first thing you need to do is order a good probiotic, and throw out that Bayer garbage. (Wheat flour, soy flour, corn starch, soybean oil, sugar, cane molasses, really???? And nowhere near enough live cultures to do any good. These chews would actually give my dog diarrhea, lol) 

Order Proviable KP paste and Proviable DC capsules online. You can shop around for prices. You are going to start with the KP for three days or so and once things are better, you're going to use the DC capsules for at least a month, so order accordingly. 

Virbantel is a de-wormer that is effective against roundworms, hookworms and tapeworms. It won't do a thing for giardia or for general diarrhea. I'd discontinue it. 

Until things improve, my suggestion would be to start feeding a homemade diet consisting of a 50/50 mix of very finely cut plain boiled white meat chicken, (removed all visible fat before and during cooking) and plain mashed sweet potatoes (you can bake the potatoes in the microwave in a few minutes, they retain more nutrients and no pots to wash). You will need to feed more of this mixture than you normally feed of the kibble, as it doesn't contain as many calories. It only contains about 200 calories per cup, so you may need to feed twice as much as you do kibble. You may want to split it into three feedings per day. Give him two or three tablespoons of plain unflavored nonfat yogurt two or three times a day at least until you start the Proviable. 

No treats other than pieces of plain boiled chicken for now. 

Get rid of the Castor & Pollux food. Once the stool starts firming up, you can slowly transition him back to his Blue Buffalo food. If you want to discuss other possible food choices, we can do that, but you do not want to introduce any new foods until the diarrhea is resolved. 

[Patrick Windsor II]

Thanks so much for the information, three quick questions, can I feed raw low fat organic ground buffalo meat versus cooked chicken? Also, do you dislike Castor & Pollux food, it received excellent ratings. Here is where I went to for the food info:

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/castor-and-pollux-or...

Third, our vet told us that yogurt is useless as the bacteria (or pro-biotic) in yogurt works on humans and not dogs, they require a different pro-biotic.

[Shari Becker]

We feed our dog a mixture of store-bought raw and kibble. Here's my two cents:

As long as the dog is sick - only cooked food. Raw foods contain all sorts of bacteria that your dog just isn't well enough to deal with. Our dog stole a raw burger off the counter, and she was sick for 24 hours. And she eats store-bought Stella and Chewy's "raw dog food" all the time. It's not the same. Some people think if you're serving your own meat that you should freeze it for two weeks to kill any bacteria. 

While your dog is healing, only use store bought raw food - Stella and Chewy's, Honest Kitchen, Primal, Nature's Instinct. These are all nutritionally sound and balanced. Your dog needs all it's vitamins and minerals. Homemade raw food that is not nutritionally sound is worse for your dog than a medium grade kibble. 

Karen knows more about the probiotics than me... 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I agree with you 100% percent on the raw food info, Shari. Excellent advice. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

You can use lean buffalo, but not raw. Homemade raw foods have too much bacteria for a dog with digestive issues, (or any dog, IMO) especially a bacterial imbalance, and it will make things worse. 

Your vet is flat out wrong about the kinds of live cultures (bacteria) that are beneficial for dogs. In fact, my dog, who has an immune-mediated inflammatory digestive disease similar to Crohn's disease in humans, is on a human probiotic that is sold for human patients with serious digestive diseases, under the guidance of his internal medicine specialist, and a $100,000 study of this human probiotic being conducted at the Iowa veterinary school has shown that this probiotic is effective enough to reduce the need for drugs in dogs with digestive disease. You might mention that to your vet, lol. It is not surprising that your vet is poorly informed on this topic,  because there is no nutrition curriculum in vet school, and all of the information the vets get about this topic comes from the salesmen who sell them the Fortiflora, Rx, foods, etc.

Regarding the dog food reviews, we have our own very well researched and active Food Group here on DK, and make our own brand recommendations. As The Dog Food Advisor himself admits on his site, there are limitations and problems with ratings like his. Not the least of which is that they look only at the ingredients and not the manufacturing or sourcing of the ingredients. Since foods that contain ingredients from China have killed and sickened thousands of pets, in the DK Food group, we do look at that. Castor & Pollux is not recommended. 

But beyond the quality of a brand, you still have to look at specific formulas. Every formula is not right for every dog, even when the brand is an excellent one. 

[Patrick Windsor II]

Karen, thank you for all of your good information. I have ordered Proviable KP paste and Proviable DC capsules and should receive that today. I started with the boiled chicken and sweet potato's for dinner yesterday, we are giving him 2 cups 3 times a day. This morning and this afternoon his stool was much better, way firmer that it has been in the past. How long should I just give him the chicken and sweet potato's? Since his stool has been firm today should I start to mix in the Blue Buffalo kibble?

Thanks again..

I will be happy when I can go a day without taking about dog poop!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Patrick, I would not start back with the Blue Buffalo until you get him started on the probiotics. This is going to take some patience. The stool firmed up because of the homemade diet (lots of water content, very easy to digest) but nothing has really changed. It's crucial that you take things slow and get a good colony of beneficial bacteria established in digestive tract before you go back to kibble. I know it's a lot of trouble cooking all that food (not to mention the costs), but you don't want to have to keep going through this. I'd keep him on the homemade food at least until he's had a couple of days of the Proviable.

[Shari Becker]

I completely agree with Karen. I would say cook homemade for about 4 or five days. We found it easiest to cook a huge batch of meat and then use it over a few days, I'd add the kibble in tiny amounts over days, too. We once did homemade for almost ten days!

[Shari Becker]

I wrote a whole response and then lost it. I can't speak to meds or giardia, but I just want to second what Karen said about the homemade diet. Our dog has a super sensitive stomach, and the only thing that firms her back up when she's had diarrhea for a few days is a complete shift to pumpkin or very soft mashed sweet potatoes with boiled lean meat. We use Slippery Elm as a supplement when it's really bad, and when it begins to firm back up, we switch back to probiotics. No treats for an upset stomach except pieces of cooked sweet potatoes or those boiled pieces of meat here, too. We use proviable probiotics all the time, and it's been great. 

I can't stress enough how important it is to avoid those treats though while treating the diarrhea. Just a few can set our dog's belly back. My friend's dog was treated medically for diarrhea and put on that Hill's dog food. The dog did not have giardia, and they couldn't get her stool back to normal afterward for almost a month. She ultimately switched to home cooked food for a week, then she put the dog on freeze dried raw food with pumpkin for few weeks. It took about two weeks, but the stool just became firmer and firmer daily, slowly while the dog's gut healed. Her dog is tiny (9 lbs) so she decided to stick with the raw food, but I suspect she could go back now that the dog is fully mended. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Honest Kitchen's Embark formula (dehydrated raw) is a good alternative, too. 

Sweet potatoes are higher in fiber and calories than pumpkin, which is why I prefer the sweet potatoes for the homemade diets. :) 

And very lean ground beef (90% lean or higher) or ground turkey can be used in place of the boiled chicken, too. I drain off all the fat and then rinse the ground beef in hot water after cooking.