PaddysDad

Congrats! Also good advice above about overheating.

I have been having great luck on Eukanuba Large Breed so far. It was originally going to be a temporary thing, but I might just keep them on it. Even the little one, who is fussy about only having small kibble likes it, despite the larger size. Still not crazy about it being owned by Mars or the fact that it has some corn, but it is nice having food that gets eaten willingly by both dogs and having poop that is easy to pick up.

From what my vet has said, some of the hook eggs hatch when the adults are killed off, so if the dog is full of hook eggs from prolonged infection, every time that you kill off the adults, a new batch of larva is released, to eventually become egg laying adults. The cycle is broken when the active ingredient in Advantage Multi (or Advocate if buying from overseas) builds to a steady state in the body (which is how it works against fleas) and the newly hatched larva get killed off when they attach to feed before reaching egg laying age. Eventually your dog will run out of resident eggs to hatch, and the leak is stopped, so to speak. The reason for increasing the dosage to two or three weeks is so that the Advantage Multi gets up to steady state in the body faster. When products say they control adult hookworm, this apparently means that they kill off the feeding adult hookworm, but do nothing else for eggs or roaming larva. So while your dog may have had a lifetime of a monthly dose of ivermectin, if it has had a major infestation of hooks, it may be full of eggs which just hatch every time the latest batch of adults are killed off. Since the usual ivermectin dosing is monthly, and the hook life cycle from egg to egg laying is 3 weeks, it will become very unlikely that the ivermectin can keep up. So while the adults are killed off -or controlled. There are more than enough eggs to replace them. The treatment developed at the out of state prison calls for a two week treatment cycle. I have been on a three week cycle on the vet's advice, to match the hook maturation period. So far, it seems to have worked, but I will be retesting in about a month, and staying on the Advantage Multi for at least another 3 months even if the next test is still negative. My vet wasn't using Advantage Multi either, but given the situation, was very open to trying it.

Tapeworm segments can look like maggots also, but you would see them in the freshly dropped poop. Most dewormers will not kill off the tapeworms (Drontal Plus, and tapeworm specific dewormers will). But if you only see them in the can, then probably maggots.

If they are in the freshly dropped stool it's one thing, but if they are in the older poop can stool, then they are probably maggots or other larva. We also use a bag in a can in the yard and it isn't uncommon to see "worms" in the can by garbage day. If you see them in fresh stuff, then get the sample to the vet.

Us too. It was very heartening to read of your successes as they came in. A few months ago we were all in the same boat. That nasty business with the Diamond naturals formula change certainly didn't help matters either.

We tried a crib mattress thinking it was a great deal at $40, but only one dog will use it very occasionally (least favorite bed in the house). We did just pick up this shredded foam bed and it is the prime spot for sleeping. One big liner inside that is water resistant, but not crinkly sounding, lots of filling, and easy to fluff back up. The liner is better quality than most, but the outer cover is the standard dog bed cover. Big enough for the biggest grey. It was 29 two weeks ago, but looks like it went up. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0741VB1DP/ref=twister_B07BLL36X6 so best and worst according to the two dogs that have six beds in the house worth mentioning that neither dog likes a bed that is too high (bed fails are more uncomfortable from greater height)

All clear for both dogs!! It has been a long 6+ months. Thank you cgs for starting this particular thread with all the information compiled at the beginning, and LaFlaca for the info on the Wondercide, and everyone else who chipped in! What worked: 3 rounds of: Day 1 - Advantage Multi/Advocate Day 2-4 - Safeguard/Panacur each round starts 3 weeks apart. Picking up the poop when it drops, even if you have to dig it out of the grass. Keeping your dog away from potential (re)infection sites like M&Gs, pet stores, and other events with fresh from the track dogs. What didn't work: Safeguard/Panacur (3 day course) by itself on a three week cycle with or without Heartgard Plus Drontal by itself on a three week cycle with or without Heartgard Plus We are going to go monthly on the Advantage Multi for three months (in place of the Heartgard Plus that we suspended when starting the Advantage Multi) and retest again in mid-August.

An empty stomach can cause that as well some times. We started giving Paddy a bedtime snack and it calmed things down for him. With everything else going on for him and the Iams food, maybe a change is in order.

This would also be my advice. A good healthy build, shiny coat, good skin and firm stool are all good indicators that the food works. For greys, I also try to keep the protein below 25. All good advice above on ramping down the food and extras.

Avisher224, I am so glad to hear that Turbo And Mav are in the clear still. That is great news about all the negative fecals for everyone. We are bringing in our samples today. It has been three weeks since the 3rd treatment of Advantage Multi and the Safeguard, so we are also hoping for a clear. We also tried the Wondercide with one treatment of the entire back yard and a followup over the area where they poop. If they are clear, we will go to three months of Advantage Multi on a monthly schedule, which conveniently lines up with July 1st. If not, we stay on the full three week regime. I still have both my pups on the Eukanuba Large Breed. I am limiting treats and very careful as to the type of treat (Paddy doesn't tolerate sweet potato very well). Perfectly formed and firm stool every time. I am ready to do a commercial for them, after having to dig out every poop on the other food.

We leave it alone for the full four days, then if there is still residue, we just wipe with a warm damp cloth and that seems to do the trick. I am very careful applying it, usually in a double row down 3/4 of the back on just each side of the spine. That way it isn't heavy enough in one spot to really be much of an issue. We also have a bunch of old sheets we lay out where the dogs lay for the first few days after treatment just to keep it from getting on stuff. To be honest, I hate the topicals and look forward to saying good bye to them in a few months if I can.

Great news! Hopefully the same for Turbo too.

and just for the sake of saying it: everything I am doing is with the consent of the vet. The goat dewormer has the same ingredients as the dog dewormer, just at different solution strength, thus the need for conversions and trains and such

If a train full of horse dewormer leaves Chicago at 7am, traveling at 70mph and another train full of goat dewormer leaves New York... TBH, converting Safeguard for goats to dewormer for dogs was quite a bit like one of those problems.

You need to know how many mg of fezbenadole are in each ml of the horse edition of the Safeguard. Then you can convert it based on the equivalent stregth in the powder form by weight of the dog -that is what I did for the "goat" dewormer. The only issue is that the dog strength is more than the goat strength, so 18ml is almost 2 full syringes to go in one meal. If the horse dewormer is diluted more, then it would be even more liquid. If the horse is the same strength as the goat (100mg/ml, I think), then the conversion would be the same at 1.1 ml for every 5 lbs of dog. The stuff is definitely even cheaper by the quart, and if you are using it on your horses anyway, you don't need to worry about having extra (although that would be a blessing at this point to not need more) eta: Oh, and congrats on 3 solid days DaintyDuchess, thanks for joining in here. Hopefully with more people contributing we can identify a clear workable solution to this. It is clear that many vets are scratching their heads at this point. However, we have seen some success as well with Laflaca and NewGrey reporting in with some success. Hope is not lost, it would seem

I was thinking this as well. Hopefully not, but best to rule it out.

We do the three year rabies and license, then offset by a year, the 5 in 1 shot (5 in 1 +2) every three years. The county just wants the rabies and license and the vet doesn't push the rest. The vet knows we do the shots on the 3 year for all of our dogs and that we are on heart worm preventative year round and really do not push anything on us.

We are blessed to have two storm tolerant dogs. Paddy has no qualms about pooping during a thunderstorm. However, we had 13 years of increasing storm phobia with our little girl who passed a few years ago. He storm phobia got worse as she got deaf, and she always knew a storm was coming before we did. amitriptyline helped, but we found it to be more of a maintenance med and kept her on it through storm season, otherwise it seemed to kick in too late. xanex seemed to kick in quick, but we never nailed down the dose before she left us. trazadone freaked her out too bad. it is in a class that can physically calm them down while not sedating them mentally (with some dogs -like trapping a freaked out dog in an unresponsive body) it reminded us of how ACE affected our other dog. some other stuff that didn't work at all or doped her up too much In the end, amitrptyline probably worked the best overall and a couple of people we recommended it too had some success with it as well.

I haven't really had a dog like Iams that much in the last 20 years. I know it works wonders for some, but they just haven't liked it. I also don't know how much of a comparison Iams is to Eukanuba other than they are both owned by Mars (along with Nutro). I know that both my dogs love the Eukanuba LB, so I will stay here until at least the hooks are cleared up. I don't like Mars involvement with pet food, but Paddy did well on the ELB and also the regular Nutro chicken and rice before Mars screwed that one up. My dogs do not tolerate the sweet potato or grain free very well. I can relate. I have one finicky eater here and another that gets soft poop from just about everything. I was totally happy with the Diamond Lamb and Rice. Nice small kibble, great ingredients, firm poops etc. AND THE DOGS LOVED IT. I am actually pretty angry that they changed it. I certainly didn't need both my dogs going soft serve while dealing with this hook business. Nutro Max has a chicken and rice that I was considering when I made the switch to Diamond from the old regular Nutro. I went with Diamond because i didn't trust anything owned by mars, but here I am again on Eukanuba.

Please... don't say "pudding"

I went to a 50-50 mix for two and a half days and to 100% Eukanuba on the 3rd day. Paddy was almost liquid on the Diamond by the time I made the switch so I wasn't too concerned about transitioning too fast. He improved within 24 hours of starting the switch. Life is so much better here now I was at the point that I had to dig up the ground under every poop to make sure that I got it all. Now they bounce when he drops them. We quit giving treats as well, so we can tell if it is medicine, hooks or whatever if he has issues, but so far everything is good, and we just finished another round of Advantage Multi/Panacur last week with no issues at all. He was on Eukanuba Large Breed before, so I knew he liked it and it worked. He has had trouble with a lot of foods loosening him up. When I got him from the rescue he was in pretty rough shape and I had him on a special diet at first until he put his weight back on and his fur grew back in and got shiny. Everything back then gave him soft stool until I put him on the Eukanuba.

Fantastic! I am happy for you as well as the rest of us who you just gave more hope to

I'm sorry to hear all this with the other doggie health stuff going on. I hope everything works itself out and Orion is feeling better soon.

I was using Diamond Naturals lamb. I switched them both to Eukanuba large breed chicken and the poop issues cleared up right away. Even with the last round of Advantage Multi and Panacur, there were no issues. The food was worse than the hooks. Everything has been easy to pick up again.