Hi, I haven't posted here in a long time but wanted to ask for some advice about my senior hound, Hazel, who just turned 11 years old. (I've had her for about 9 years.) For about a week and a half she had diarrhea. I brought her to the vet at around day 4 or 5, we got prescribed metronidazole, and were told to put her on a chicken and rice diet. She's allergic to chicken so I did turkey instead. This didn't seem to help at all, so after about 4 days I switched her over to oatmeal instead of rice, which seems to have given her slightly more solid poops, but they're still mostly mush. They're just not complete puddles anymore. However, her poop has been bright, bright orange this entire time. She's not eating anything orange (pumpkin, carrots, etc) that would cause this. She had a fecal that was negative for parasites but they did not check for any kind of bacteria. The vet said that it wasn't necessary because the metronidazole should have taken care of any bacteria.
I just spoke with the vet again today -- it's been a week since I brought Hazel in to the vet, and almost two weeks now since this all started -- and I told her about Hazel's stool being bright orange. They want to put her on a prescription canned diet and a probiotic and see if that helps. She's run through her course of metronidazole and the vet doesn't want to give her any more since it's not doing anything.
Does this sound like we are on the right track? Is there something else we should be checking for? I got myself all scared reading about how orange poop could mean liver issues, and I worry that she could still have some kind of bacteria going on. She was acting somewhat lethargic/off in the beginning of all this, but over the past few days has been back to herself again -- active, bright-eyed, happy. Her appetite has been great this entire time. (Though if she ever stopped wanting to eat I would know something is severely wrong; she always wants to eat.) No vomiting or anything. No sign of abdominal swelling or pain. The only thing I can think of that would have caused the diarrhea would be that she got a dental bone and a couple of treats she doesn't normally get around the 24th when this all started, and maybe that threw her system out of whack? She had been eating those dental bones for a month without issue though.
Thanks for any help or advice you can offer.