Random Diarrhea At Regular Intervals

[Guest Wasabi303]

Okay I am completely stumped. Wasabi and I have been doing the diet run around for about a year and a half. She had terrible gas when I got her and after months of trial and error we settled on IAMS green bag and Olewo's Carrots. This took care of the gas and she has been eating that consistently for about a year.

 

Over the summer we tried going 1/2 raw. She loved this but it was too unpredictable for me. I had a good source for chicken, but every now and then she would get sick (and my sick a mean waking me up in the middle of the night urgent need to go outside then howling while having terrible diarrhea. I now affectionately refer to this phenomenon as The Screaming **s). So we went back to IAMS.

 

But the random Screaming **s continue (and yes they did happen sometimes before our adventure in raw food). She will be fine for weeks and weeks, we will be in the middle of a bag of kibble, no diet changes, nothing, and she will get sick. On one such occasion I took a sample into the vet, it got tested and the bacteria in her gut were way off balance so we got some antibiotics and probiotics and she was soon back to normal. That occasion I thought we had a cause because she had eaten a piece of cat poo on one of our walks before I could catch her. I am now extremely vigilant. (BTW this little adventure cost me $200, which is why I don't take her to the vet whenever it happens anymore. It almost always clears up in 24hrs)

 

I am a very clean and organized person. Wasabi never goes on walks with anyone else, trashcans in the house are all hidden from her, and there is nothing she could be eating. So what is happening?

 

I am not sure if this is related or not, but sometimes she will be asleep or relaxing in her bed and she will suddenly whine really intensely for a moment or too, like she is in pain. She then just stops and goes back to sleep. But it is very clearly not a dream, as she was doing it a moment ago and i went over to try and figure out what was going on and she was still whining and standing up.

 

Any advice? Does my dog just have the most temperamental stomach ever? Am I doing something wrong?

 

 

 

 

[KF_in_Georgia]

I had a boy with a tender stomach. I started tracking him on a calendar--symbols for good poop days and bad days, notes for changes in diet, new bag of food or treats, the dates meds started and stopped. Sam was on flagyl for a bad stomach; he'd take the whole course of meds, finish the pills, and the diarrhea would be back within 4 days after he took the last pill. It did this every time for an entire summer. The vet put him on a very low maintenance dose of metronidazole (half a pill, every other day), and that pretty much took care of things--except for one other occasional problem.

 

I kept up with the calendar for him, and there it was, right in front of us: diarrhea at the first of every month--when he got his Heartgard Plus. (It wasn't the med itself. It was the flavoring.) In this case, the girl dog had the same problem. I put both dogs on Advantage Multi (a topical for heartworm and fleas) and the monthly diarrhea stopped. I lost Sam to old age problems several months later, but Silver is still here at ten and a half. These days, she takes (oral) Interceptor and doesn't have a problem with it.

(By the way, we're an Iams green bag household, too. My current boy was surrendered by an earlier adopter, and she said the Iams was the only food he could tolerate. Silver was already on the Iams, and we've just stuck with it. These days, the only problem occurs if the lactose-intolerant boy sneaks some dairy he shouldn't have. Both dogs also take a probiotic capsule every day--whatever brand I'm taking.)

Try tracking your girl on a calendar and see if something shows up that way. You might try being really rigid about what she eats for one month: one brand of dog food, one kind of treat, no people-food snacks, and see if that makes a difference. (My vet liked the calendar because he wasn't having to rely on what I could remember about Sam's diet, and the calendar is really good at revealing "causes" when cause and effect are a few days apart.) I just pick up the freebies--stuff given out by stores (usually with their own coupons), the reduced-price calendars on sale after January 1, etc.--and try to keep a couple of them around. I've been happy not to need one for the last two years.

[KF_in_Georgia]

The whining in her sleep may indicate she's having abdominal cramps, which often accompany (or precede) diarrhea, so I'd track noisy episodes as well as diarrhea or other obvious stomach troubles.

[JohnF]

The whining in her sleep may indicate she's having abdominal cramps, which often accompany (or precede) diarrhea, so I'd track noisy episodes as well as diarrhea or other obvious stomach troubles.

 

You could treat those pain symptoms with a human Buscopan tablet.

But cyclical diahrrrea is usually microbe-related and a weak intestinal barrier will let the bugs back in.

[Guest xengab]

might be already done but has your grey been tested for worms? Some worms come in cycles and those carrots (if you still feed em) can HELP ease worms through the body but wont kill the eggs off. Worth a look into at least.

Tracking the poop cycle will be a smart idea, and might give more clues to the vet.

[Zachary]

My pup Gilly was going through similar episodes for almost a year despite being tested for worms. Gilly has always been fed a raw diet, but I changed suppliers with no improvement; I then changed from a mix of beef and chicken to straight chicken for a couple of weeks -- no joy; changed to a couple of weeks of straight beef, again no joy. And then, cue the heavenly music, I came across this thread: http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/313341-larval-leak-syndrome-hookworms/ and after specialized OPP testing, and 8 weeks of treatment with Panacur and retesting for hookworms problem solved. This syndrome is also known as larval migrans.

 

Best of luck to you and your pup, this is so very frustrating.

 

Also, just in case Wasabi does have worms, catching his stool in a bag before it hits the ground is recommended. Think baseball catcher stance!

[Guest xengab]

You can buy these stick things on amazon that allow you to put bags on them. They are meant for scooping the poop, but my grey allows me to hold it under his butt and the poop drops inside. Never touches the ground, I hate the feeling of poop in my hands..LOL I've also had homeowners tell me, they prefer it as nothing gets left behind on their lawn.

 

BUT seems I can use this now for any suspected worm issues that might come up Best $15 I have spent. (also has been used to defend my dog from small fluffy aggressive dogs)