He's Had Diarrhea On And Off For 5 Months :(

[Guest badderh]

We've had Rocky for about 5 months, and when we first got him his foster told us that he would do fine on Purina or Pedigree. We started noticing that he had nasty diarrhea with Purina so after about 3 weeks, we tried Pedigree for about 3 or 4 weeks and saw no difference. So after about 2 months of this we sucked it up and started buying a more expensive and more natural dog food (Nature's Recipe) because my father in law switched his dogs over to it and saw a really good change in allergies, poop, energy, ect. The Nature's Recipe variety we are buying is about $45 and would like to keep it around that range. While on this dog food he has normal poop like 30-40% of the time and then the rest is all diarrhea. So we've kept him on this for the past 3 months mainly because we've been confused on what to do, and we were afraid that we were switching dog foods too much and wanted to make sure that wasn't the cause either.

 

Anyone else have this problem with their pup when they first got them? Anyone have suggestions on what I should do to see if maybe its more than just the food? (We did go see the vet about his SA, and during that time she did a physical exam and said he was healthy). Any suggestions on moderately priced food that might make a difference? Any input or suggestions are appreciated!

[Houndtime]

I had good success with home cooked oatmeal. Buy Quaker Oats in the supermarket. It takes about 5 minutes to make. Zoolaine here recommended it to me. Add about two tables to your dogs food and mix in. Oats is an ingredient in sensitive stomach dog foods. Good luck. I am, also, now feeding Iams in the green bag and my dogs have had the best poops ever. Definitely a less expensive dog food.

[Guest jbethune]

We have had our guy about 4 months. Our foster Mom recommended a grain free from Cosco which was reasonably priced and in big bags. Also, when we do have little bouts of diarrhea I have some frozen pumpkin treats (homemade - just pour 100% pumpkin from the can into any form - I use muffin tops) and he loves them. This helps the sensitive stomach.

[Time4ANap]

I would first try de-worming him, even if the fecal test is negative. Worms are cyclical, so this could explain the recurring bouts.

 

If that doesn't do it, try a different protein source as the main ingredient in food. If both of the foods that caused problems are chicken based, try a food without chicken etc.... It can take some time to find the right food. We go through this about once a year with Rocket as he seems to build up a food intolerance after a while. Usually a change to a different protein source and he goes back to normal.

 

Since the problem is only 30 or 40% of the time, also take a look at any treats he is eating - is he getting anything in particular around the same time that the diarrhea starts?

 

Good luck.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Time4ANap

[TheFullHouse]

I'm all for trying to de-worm him. It could be hooks and those are hard to get rid of. Once you've done that, maybe try something without chicken. A lot of greys have issues with chicken.

[gazehund]

I'm all for trying to de-worm him. It could be hooks and those are hard to get rid of. Once you've done that, maybe try something without chicken. A lot of greys have issues with chicken.

 

Agree with Judy and Time4ANap. Worm and try a different protein source. Cracker did not have diarrhea, but he

was a very fussy eater. Turns out not only does chicken not agree with him he just doesn't like it. I don't feed kibble

only. I feed a mixture of kibble, home cooked and raw. Once I switched the kibble formula to beef based grain

free and eliminated chicken and turkey from the diet all three of my hounds are fine.

[Guest LindsaySF]

I'm all for trying to de-worm him. It could be hooks and those are hard to get rid of. Once you've done that, maybe try something without chicken. A lot of greys have issues with chicken.

Agree with Judy and Time4ANap. Worm and try a different protein source.

I agree too.

[Burpdog]

Do panacur for 5 days in a row. What I did with Buffy was panacur for 5 days, wait two weeks and repeat. So far so good. Do not worm for tape unless you see segments!

[Guest sirsmom]

Do panacur for 5 days in a row. What I did with Buffy was panacur for 5 days, wait two weeks and repeat. So far so good. Do not worm for tape unless you see segments!

 

I think Panacur also takes care of certain tapeworms too so yes don't double the cure.

[Guest WhiteWave]

Rebel is doing the same thing. Not really diarrhea, but puddin poop. He will be fine for a few weeks on a food, then start having issues. I could understand having issues from the beginning, but he does fine and then has issues.

 

I'm going to worm him again, but we've already done panacur and he gets ivomec/pyrantel monthly and is on flea preventative otherwise tapes can be an issue and I've not seen any worms.

 

We were doing grain free so we are trying lower protein/fat with grains, but still same issue. He is also too thin. He is about 5lbs under racing weight.

[Guest LindsaySF]

Do panacur for 5 days in a row. What I did with Buffy was panacur for 5 days, wait two weeks and repeat. So far so good. Do not worm for tape unless you see segments!

I think Panacur also takes care of certain tapeworms too so yes don't double the cure.

Panacur gets Taeniid tapeworms but not the flea tapeworm. The flea tapeworm is the most common tapeworm and you usually will see "rice grains" in the stool.

[Hubcitypam]

Dontral Plus. Expensive but so worth not messing around with a bunch of more specific wormers.

 

OK, I am honor bound to suggest that you try Iams. It has fixed a ton of runny poop dogs - including my Rex after I had gone to heck and back trying expensive foods. Chicken (green bag) or lamb (red bag).

[Guest 2dogs4cats]

If he is de-wormed and still has diarrhea, I would do an elimination diet to figure out the cause.

[Guest Timo]

Timo had bad poops for over a year after we got him. We switched to grain free. It helped but was still bad. We switched from chicken to fish, and that helped greatly, but not 100%. Some days were better than others.

 

For the last 6 months or so, after reading several threads on here, I added l-glutamine to his diet. That helped. Then after more reading, I added slippery elm bark. That also helped. Then after even more reading, I added two heaping tbsp of dried beet pulp to every meal along with the glutamine and slippery elm bark. Almost perfect poops. Even his third or fourth poop on his morning walk is firm enough to pick up without leaving much of a residue. I've since taken out the bark but leaving in the glutamine. Still great poops.

[Guest Fergus]

Some track greyhounds have intestines that are very sensitive (colitis, IBD, etc). Our guy had runny poo for many months after we adopted him. We had multiple fecal tests (none positive), and a few rounds of Panacur, and after that he had to be on boiled rice and boiled meat for a while to stabilize him. It took a while and he got really skinny. Then I ended up very gradually starting him on Limited Ingredients Natural Balance Bison & Sweet Potato and added 1 tsp psyllium to each meal. He was fairly stabilized (but not reliably so) for about a year on that regimen, and the psyllium really helped make his poo pick-up-able. Then this spring we brought a puppy into our home and the puppy came with roundworm. Our vet instructed us to do a round of Pyrantel on him as well as the puppy and his guts were just a mess after that. We tried EVERYTHING everyone had ever suggested to us, including Chinese herbs, oatmeal, pumpkin, boiled rice, dried potato flakes, then I remembered reading what Hubcitypam had said about Iams green bag and the beet pulp they use in it. Because nothing else was working (including boiled rice by this point), we decided not to introduce it slowly as we had always done with food, but just gave him a whole meal of it. It worked like nothing else. Thanks, Pam! (By the way, we have also tried raw, at a point when our guy was stabilized enough and we thought it was a good thing to try it. He just could not handle it.)

[MaryJane]

Have you ever told the vet that he has diarrhea? He might need to get on a bland diet of hamburger and rice and get a treatment of flagyl.

[Guest WhiteWave]

Switched Rebel a few days ago to Casper's food which is grain free, potato free and chicken free. So for firm poop ever since even same day we switched with no transition. I think it is chicken he cannot tolerate.

[Guest Angelique]

It took us over a year to get firm poop, after trying premium and low grade, and raw, and home cooked... He only eats Beneful Original now and we haven't had any issues in over a year. After six months on Beneful he could eat home cooked rice w/chicken w/pork or beef and digest it perfectly. (He can eat almost anything home cooked now, as well as yoghurt, egg, fish, lamb, etc...) But a few bites of any other brand of kibble and he will have the runs for a day or two at least... I'm guessing its some ingredient that most commercial dog foods use that his system just cannot handle, i haven't a clue what it is, but the Beneful Original and Puppy don't use it while the Beneful Salmon does. It might be worth checking

 

And please don't flame me for the crappy dog food, its the only thing that we have found that consistently keeps him from the big D.

[Guest badderh]

It took us over a year to get firm poop, after trying premium and low grade, and raw, and home cooked... He only eats Beneful Original now and we haven't had any issues in over a year. After six months on Beneful he could eat home cooked rice w/chicken w/pork or beef and digest it perfectly. (He can eat almost anything home cooked now, as well as yoghurt, egg, fish, lamb, etc...) But a few bites of any other brand of kibble and he will have the runs for a day or two at least... I'm guessing its some ingredient that most commercial dog foods use that his system just cannot handle, i haven't a clue what it is, but the Beneful Original and Puppy don't use it while the Beneful Salmon does. It might be worth checking

 

And please don't flame me for the crappy dog food, its the only thing that we have found that consistently keeps him from the big D.

 

My parent's dog has been eating Beneful for 14 years now and he is still hanging in there and still has the energy of a puppy, he even puts up a good race with Rocky whenever we come around even though he knows he won't win . Picking up after a dog with the Big D everyday gets old pretty fast and I can't imagine its too much fun for our pup either so whatever ends up working, it is what it is.

 

On a side note, I was reading the box his heart worm meds come in and it says that it "controls flea populations, and adult hookworms, and removes and controls adult roundworm and whip worm infections in dogs" should I still try some of the de-wormers that are suggested if his heart worm meds say they are taking care of it?

[Guest jbox]

Iams Lamb & Rice dry food might be worth a shot. Works awesome on every dog I have tried it on in the poop department.

[a_daerr]

I just switched to Iams green bag after having similar problems. Even my AKC greyhound (who shouldn't have any type of digestive intolerance) had runny poops and terrible gas on the designer brands. Green bag cleared it up in a day. It was miraculous.

[Guest 2GreytsMom]

One of mine had such a horrible stomach when we adopted him that he had to be put on IV meds at one point. Went through lots of flagyl & Pepcid- we thought he might have irritable bowel. As time went on we found out by hit & miss that he just naturally has a nervous stomach, can't eat any people food and it took a few rounds of panacur when we got him then again a YEAR later!! We thought the hookworms were gone the first time. Pudding poops were the best we saw for over a year... now that the worms are really finally gone, he's fine unless he eats something he shouldn't (wish hubby didn't leave a trail of pretzel pieces behind him! lol)

 

These guys don't come with user manuals! Patience and less stress goes a long way but I'd definitely recommend another worm test... those little buggers are hard to get rid of!