PrairieProf

So very sad. What a sweet brave baby, and her face looks so familiar to me. May you be running wherever you are, Piglet.

:grouphug

How perplexing and worrisome -- hope you get answers from the vet (or, really, that nothing is wrong and it's just some passing weird greyhound thing). You are a good greyhound parent to take him in! I'll be checking for updates.

If this were my dog, I would go to the emergency vet. He's evidently in pain, and if the blood were to turn into HGE, that's a true emergency.

That sounds pretty bad. I think it could be so many different things. But I'd say he absolutely needs to be on metronidazole for a start. And if there's blood in his poop I would NOT wait until after the weekend but try to get him in somewhere today.

Poor baby, how stressful (at least for you!). Hope she's happy to be home and heals uneventfully.

My vet now recommends/uses a new (I think) dog probiotic called Proviable (you can get it online too). He says he's seen really excellent results with it, that it's replaced Fortiflora as what they recommend. I know it has a lot more strains of bacteria than Fortiflora does.

By "pass away as naturally as possible at home" do you mean you plan to wait until she basically dies of starvation? I could not do that to an animal I loved. That seems like suffering to me, even if it's not exactly pain. My beloved cat Quinn had nasal cancer that had spread to the lymph node in his throat on that side, and eventually the node got so large that he stopped eating, though he didn't show much distress from the primary tumor. When it was clear that the not eating wasn't just a temporary thing and we couldn't get him going through any means (we tried every tempting food, even tried prednisone to stimulate his appetite), I knew it was time for him to go to the Bridge. It wasn't that his body was shutting down so much as that he just couldn't eat, and it sounds like that is what's happening with poor Mittens. I would think and hope you could find a vet who will come to your house.

....or EVER AGAIN! I don't even want to imagine the smell of cooking green tripe.... I wonder if the people who work in the processing plant for canned tripe get hardship pay. . ..

Yes, I gave Beth jack mackerel and sardines and canned salmon many times without incident. And she did best on fish-based kibble. I think it was the concentrated fat of the fish oil that was the problem. It'll be awhile before I try even fatty fish again, as it's now seeming like she was just under the threshold of pancreatic trouble a lot of the time. I'm a bit for having tried the salmon oil after reading so many raves here about it here (and I do take fish oil myself). But I'm also feeling incredibly relieved in a way, if it contributed to finding out what Beth's problem is without either a full-blown hospitalization incident or even longer-term undiagnosed damage.

Sounds like the canned would really be easiest! It doesn't need to be raw to have the "dog crack" effect. I had to order Tripett online but the Solid Gold Green Cow tripe is at Petco (we don't have independent holistic pet food places where I live; YMMV). I don't find the canned smells that much worse than, say, cat food. Beth adores it and does well with it, though unfortunately I'll have to stop feeding it because of her just-diagnosed pancreas issue, at least for the time being.

It won't hurt them, but the white stuff has no nutritional benefit. I imagine if you tried to cook green tripe you wouldn't, uh, want to live in your house anymore for a few days.... If you want to feed non-raw green tripe the easy thing would be to buy the canned Tripett variety (Solid Gold also makes a canned tripe, but it has other stuff in it) -- the company says it's just lightly cooked and still maintains the enzymatic benefits etc.

Welcome from Iowa to you and your beautiful boys!

I would LOVE to be able to give Beth fish oil in the future, but now I'm 95% sure that's what set off her recent flare-up, so I'd be pretty nervous -- maybe if the rest of the diet was low-fat enough it would be OK. Actual fish might work better -- she's had that many times without apparent incident, and rinsed canned salmon isn't too fatty but still has good Omega 3 levels. Kelly's regimen sounds impressively simple all in all, and I'm glad he's doing so well. The idea of being able to eventually feed Beth partly home-cooked is appealing, but one thing at a time for now. Thank goodness she really really likes the I/D! She also appears pretty enthusiastic about the affiliated hypoallergenic treats the vet recommended as safe.

Hmm, actually Beth has rarely been off her food -- even when having poop issues she's generally been a chow hound. I wonder now about the incident in the fall/early winter where she started vomiting and did act really mopey for a few days, that we decided was a stomach bug (though I think it may really have been that). But I'll keep an eye on her. It's actually sort of exciting to think she may have fewer poop problems in future now that we know what sets her off. I realize I'm going to have to stop using peanut butter in her Kong, poor girl -- she loves it so! I smeared some canned I/D in there today, yuck -- though she seemed happy enough. (I looked at the reduced fat PB in the market today, but the fat really isn't all that much lower, and of course they make up the difference with HFCS or sugar, bleah.) I stopped using low-fat cream cheese a while back because I thought it set off D once, but I might have to carefully try it again.

Thanks Kristin. The Wolf King looks like something Beth would like -- she loves bison. I really like the idea of home-cooked as an addition (as I was adding raw before), but would probably want some portion of kibble to make sure all the vitamins etc. were getting covered. I'm glad you had experience of a dog who did well with this condition (and of course Beth hasn't had acute pancreatitis). Beth seems so healthy and vigorous in most ways, I want her to stay that way as long as possible!

Ask your vet if there is a difference in "formulated" vs "tested" ???? Think every bag of kibble I've ever bought was AAFCO formulated, but looking closer only one I can see here has been tested and approved. That would be Purina Dog Chow. AAFCO tested and approved.according to the bag. I know, it's ridiculous, but he thinks it makes a difference, that you can't trust the ingredients in food from companies that don't test or something. Seems like big companies do test -- Hills, Purina, Iams, and it seems like Natura (now part of P&G, I know) does. Need more time to look further. (I do know your stance on Iams as a miracle food for poop and might in fact consider the low-fat version. ) My current thought: I've found a local vet who at least per his website sells holistic pet foods at his office and seems to promote them (Solid Gold, California Natural, TOTW and maybe others). I think I will try to make an appointment for a consultation with him in the coming weeks, and see his thoughts on the AAFCO issue and what food would be good for a dog like Beth. That way I could at least have a vet recommendation to back me up.

Remember that some of the people whose food research is the most respected on this board are the first to say that you should use whatever works best for an individual dog. Just for my curiosity, how low a protein % is your vet recommending? Well, he didn't say specifically, as we're not dealing with the transition yet, but the dry I/D is listed at 22% protein, 9% fat on the bag, so I assume he means something comparable. There are lots of commercial foods in the 20% protein/10% fat range, so that shouldn't be a problem -- I would have a problem going under 20%. Thanks for the reassurance. Beth is my first dog and I have so wanted to do right by her. Figuring out what works for Beth was tricky -- it took us a good while to find anything that worked for her as well as TOTW did, though I'm hoping more foods might work better if they were low fat. Just because she has the pancreatic issue doesn't mean she doesn't have other food issues, I realize! I'm actually surprised she has good output on the I/D, but she does -- not super-firm but small and formed. I'm still in the process of adding dry I/D in -- I want to feed a mix of the dry and canned. I like the canned ingredients better, but it gets crazy how much you go through for a greyhound-sized dog.

Thanks, but she needs to be on a low fat food, like 10% fat max. She does seem to be losing weight (or not gaining back some she lost) on the I/D though, I'm noticing.

I don't think they mean much, but my vet does. So if I could find a food that was tested at least as the first thing to try, it would avoid conflict, but it's not my absolute priority. Looks like California Naturals tests according to AAFCO procedures, so that might be something. At any rate, I think I need to stop obsessing about it right now, and focus on the good news that I know now how to keep Beth healthy and hopefully avoid recurring D incidents.

Thanks for the good wishes. The standards statement means no feeding trials, at least not formal ones, sigh. I'm thinking I might just lie to my vet when it comes to the point....

Yeah, not AAFCO tested with feeding trials though; I was just looking at them. I might have to go against my vet here ... seems like only the big commercial companies do feeding trials. It's weird, he's holistic in some ways (does acupuncture) but is very, very conventional when it comes to food.

Beth has always had a sensitive stomach, and has been having some further problems in the past few weeks -- not counting the "didn't want to eat her kibble" spell a month or two back, a couple of weeks ago she had sudden-onset diarrhea (a few days after I started adding salmon oil to her food) that got better on Hill's I/D and 3 days of flagyl but relapsed last week after she was transitioned back onto her regular food. Early this week I took her for the blood test to check for EPI (exocrine pancreatic insufficiency) and SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), and to have a fecal culture and cytology done. Results came back today -- her folate and cobalamin levels (measuring for SIBO) were fine, as was her fecal culture. But her TLI (pancreas) test was not low as for EPI but borderline *high* -- the normal range is 5-35; over 35 indicates acute pancreatitis (or renal dysfunction or malnutrition, neither of which she has). Hers was 33.8, so sort of knocking on the door of pancreatitis I guess, according to my vet. He wants me to keep her on I/D and flagyl for a month (she's been on both for a week now) and we'll retest the TLI then. If it's lower, I can transition her to a non-prescription food, but it still needs to be low fat and (according to him; I don't get this) lowish protein. I'm a little shaken to find she has a real medical condition, but relieved to know what we've probably been dealing with since I got her -- without having her go into a full case of pancreatitis to learn it! And it does seem like this will be simpler to manage than IBD, which is always what we thought she tended towards. It makes sense since most of her "D" incidents that I recall have been linked to consuming some extra fat (like salmon oil, sigh). Any experience with all of this? Can you reassure me Beth can be healthy (and have a decent coat) on a low-fat diet? (Please don't give me a lecture about the evils of Hill's prescription foods; there's nothing you can say I haven't read and worried about, but I'm trying hard to trust my vet here -- and the I/D certainly seems to be working poop-wise!) My vet is pretty insistent that I should use only a food that has actually been AAFCO tested, which seems to knock out most foods anyone thinks are high quality, but I've got a month to figure out what I'm going to propose in that department. Meanwhile, she ran like an absolute nut at the dog park this morning, so she clearly feels pretty good. Guess no exciting food treats for her fifth birthday in a week, though.....

Adorable spotty girl! And I love your bold kitty pic -- I just want to give him/her a squeeze. Welcome to GT!

I'd say, stool sample in and vet visit -- sounds like a prescription for Flagyl would be in order. It's an antibiotic but also quiets an irritated stomach. It's typically the first line of treatment for upset stomach issues. (I've been through GI issues with my girl enough that I can just ask for the prescription if she's having D without bringing her in.)