greyhead

So it's not just me! NB has been driving me crazy for months with their inconsistency! Fortunately, the place I buy it will take it back. But I've resorted to buying the smallest bags for Spencer and gotten better consistency in them, for whatever reason. Shane we recently switched to Wellness kibble because his poops on NB had become gigantic, though Spencer doesn't have that problem with it. And calling the company months ago to ask about it did no good at all; I just got somebody who I could tell was giving a scripted kind of there's-nothing-wrong answer. Whew, I must've needed to say that.

Welcome to GT! I'm very honored to be getting your first post! The new vet thing has crossed my mind.

Maybe I should be posting in Soap Box instead cuz I'm feeling pretty frustrated. But in case someone may find this shared experience useful, or if anyone has advice or experience to share, I'll post here. Shane has had an E. coli UTI for...months and months! His vet has kept wanting to call him incontinent, and said she was sure he didn't have a UTI. I finally requested a C&S when he refused food and became hard to rouse! He has had four rounds of Amoxi-Clav-Pot, with recheck cultures after rounds 2 and 4. When I reported that he was still having leakage problems at the end of round 4, I left him with the vet for a little while, and my husband went to pick him up about a half-hour later. The vet handed him some literature and a letter asking for observations of his urinary habits, and it basically laid out the treatment options for incontinence. (And at the time, the vet told my husband, "We've done it her way, and now we're going to do it my way." This didn't tick me off at the time, but it does now.) So I waited about 8 days after the medicine was finished and took in a new urine sample; the culture results came back positive again! Last night the vet called with this info and said that, amazingly, the sensitivity test showed the germs are still susceptible to the same antibiotic (though at a really really high dose at this point)! Well, we decided to switch. There was a pretty long list of possible antibiotics, and I asked for Baytril. We agreed to give him two weeks' worth and, if it's working well, give him a third week. Oh, and I was gracious in victory if one wants to call it that, but I am not happy. This vet has wanted to call this dog incontinent since he was 5 years old. But antibiotics cleared it up that time too. And that's one of the points I want to make here: his leakage completely stopped after the second round of antibiotic, stopped for two weeks. Then it started up again and continued unabated through rounds 3 and 4. So I'm guessing that it was just too entrenched when treatment started, so that even 20 days of antibiotic wasn't enough. We should have kept it up for a longer *continuous* time just for good measure. I asked if this was some weird strain of E. coli that's hard to vanquish, but the vet didn't think so. Jeez. So for anyone who is curious, yes, apparently this kind of thing can last this long!!! Has anyone else here had such an experience, though?! And if you don't have anything else to say, please just give me an encouraging word, cuz I am so tired out by this.

I did a GT archive search using "cobalamin" as the term and found this post I made back in 2009. You might find it interesting! Of course, we later learned that malabsorption was not the only problem, by a long shot. But B-12 is powerful stuff.

Spencer gets B12 injections every few weeks at home. We had the cobalamin/folate test, which indicated intestinal malabsorption. What's telling is the relationship between those two B vitamins, as well as the absolute amounts. Or so I understand. And it meant that he had lost the ability to process B12 in the gut, which is why supplementing by mouth wouldn't work. After this we found that he indeed had a serious small bowel infection. After treating that, we did an ultrasound that showed IBD. The bounce he got within a day of his first B12 shot was amazing. Didn't cure his troubles, because low B12 is a symptom more than a disease itself. But still, the dog gets a big lift from it. Your vet should sell you a bottle, and syringes, cheap! And I would want to do more tests (like a fecal culture) to find out what the underlying problem is. ETA: Here's a link on cobalamin and its testing, and I'll find you another one in a minute, I think. http://www.cvm.tamu....b12folate.shtml and http://vetmed.tamu.edu/gilab/research/cobalamin-information

What a greyt long life! I'm so sorry for your loss.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Yes, raw is good! One-third of his diet, per day, is commercial raw (Primal Pets Venison). But experience showed that that had to be the percentage of raw, not more and not less, for Spencer to stay okay. I've tested it from time to time, but it hasn't changed. But if I can't get decent venison kibble and canned to make up the other 2/3 now and in the future, I'll have to do as you suggest. Trouble is, I don't know any hunters here in Seattle, and I don't think I'd ask a friend to send me a dead deer from Wyoming! But I'll keep looking into it. I do belong to a couple raw-feeding groups here, but they don't tend to handle venison. Our experience suggests that at least some IBD dogs not only handle some amount of raw food, but require it. Thanks very much for your suggestions.

If it's LSS, we get great results from acupuncture! But we haven't reached the poop-leaking point yet.

I tend to blame companies' greed before suspecting the gov't, but that's just me! I wonder if it's companies' having a hard time getting safe meat at a reasonable price. Or if they just want to get it cheaper from unsafe places... But I need to know because if it's an industrywide problem, then I can save myself the trouble of trying every single brand! Thanks to you and Kelly! He's not needing ER treatment or anything, but he's having to go back on Flagyl (and I fear the neurological, esp. cognitive, effects that can come from accumulation) and to have his Budesonide dose tripled. I'd much prefer to fix the food problem if that's what's caused this!

I really hate to say this, but he sounds a lot like our Spencer. Like Stripeyfan's Kelly, he started with hookworm. A couple years later, after a dental, he developed intestinal malabsorption, which we discovered (via the cobalamine/folate test) after months of soft, yellow poop which was getting progressively smellier. That turned out to be a case of SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) with the bacterium Clostridium perfringens, something they don't usually test for. In fact, I had to ask three times before they actually did a culture and sensitivity test on his poop instead of just a fecal for worms! All this took a year to get cleared up, after which he had IBD too. We diagnosed the IBD through ultrasound, just wanting to get a look inside there without doing surgery. He had already lost a lot of weight, after all, and was 8 years old. He also had that flaky skin, which stayed with him quite a while. And even now, after all his treatments and meds, he still has to have a precise mix of raw food, kibble, and canned food or he doesn't do well. Your speaking of the proportions of food your dog requires really rang a bell for me. And even at that, he's losing weight. So it sounds like you need to get even more serious at this point about diagnosis. My advice would be not to jump around among too many main proteins right now in his food. If you wind up with IBD and have to have a "novel" protein, there won't be any novel ones if you've already tried them all. Second, get the cobalamine/folate test to see if he's absorbing the nutrients from his food. If not, he'll need sub-cutaneous B-12 shots, which you can easily give at home. Third, get a C&S on his poop to see if there are any germs. Ruling out giardia is not sufficient. Fourth, if it seems necessary, have a look-see of his stomach and intestines with an ultrasound. Through all of this, please keep some proteins away from him that you can go to later for novel proteins if need be! (We got down to where all our IBD dog could eat is venison. There's also kangaroo, but the formula available is too complex -- loaded with extras -- to be workable for an IBD dog.) And don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about what I've said.

Spencer can only eat venison, the only novel protein we could find in an uncomplicated formula. We've noticed changes in texture in the canned Evo and now Wellness (with sweet potato) in the last few months. I know P&G bought out Evo, so that explains that. Now we're seeing the same texture change in the Wellness, and Spencer is having an IBD flare. My suppliers have mentioned a "sourcing" problem with venison, but I don't know what that means specifically, and nobody seems able to elaborate.] Does anyone know what's going on with venison? Has anyone else noticed what I'm decribing? (Even the Natural Balance venison kibble has had very variable quality the past year!) If we have to give up venison, I don't know what we'll do. But I'd at least like to have a better idea what's going on.

What a gorgeous, loving girl! I'm so sorry for your loss.

It's clear from what you wrote that no hound was ever better loved than Guinness. I'm so glad that you had each other! At the same time, I'm so very sorry for his sudden loss.

Sending good thoughts to you and your senior boy. Let us know how things go.

That was a lovely tribute to a fine boy. That picture of him running in the snow helps take some of the sting out of things somehow. I'm so glad he knew love in a good home with you.

I'm so very sorry, Beth.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Princess was a beauty and, I'm sure, a pleasure.

He put up a good fight. I'm so sorry he had to go.

Sending good thoughts and checking for an update!

At the other end of the spectrum, we seem to be getting good results with injecting Adequan subcutaneously each week. This is after two years of acupuncture and trying rimadyl, glucosamine, and MSM. He's still getting the acupuncture/chiropractic every two weeks as it seems to help him in some general way too.

Spencer told me to tell his bud Kelly to feel better fast! And I'm so glad you switched vets! I hadn't known the old vet made such a ridiculous proposal as waiting six weeks last year!!! Lotsa healing thoughts wafting across the pond.

You gave Dimples the perfect home, and she knew it! I'm sure she would've stayed if she could.

I do too, hon. What Neyla's Mom wrote is true, but especially true of cats, I believe. I don't have much experience with dogs, but what I have heard suggests that it's a harder road in general. I'll be seeing one of our vets in about an hour and will ask her about this and get back to you. {{{Holli}}} You're such a good dog mom! And I'm really happy for you that you've apparently got a job in a place you wanted to move to anyway! Even though it means I'll never realize my fantasy of meeting your pack in Yakima. ETA: Just checked with that vet and she said my memory is correct, that dogs have a lot harder time than cats when it comes to transcending bad numbers the way I've seen cats sometimes do.