| Re: Yucko - giardia
Hi Lorri,
I am so sorry to hear about Legend - that sounds horrible! I don't have a lot of information for you, other than what I've been told by our vet or from doing research on the Internet. If Legend is that sick, perhaps you could get a second opinion from another vet? Here's what we did for Marley:
We have begun to suspect that Marley had giardia for much longer than we originally thought. For about two weeks, he was exhausted in the evenings - and fairly lethargic. Since he is a mellow dog, honestly, we just figured it was his personality. He also started to be very picky and refuse his food (even with various fun toppings), but for the most part, would still eat human food if given the chance. This was probably for the last month. We thought he was just trying to hold out for better food. We called the vet initially about this and they told us dogs just do this sometimes. We were feeding him (when he would eat) a ton of food - something like 5 cups of Canidae a day for a 65lb dog, but he never gained a pound and started to lose a bit of weight. He also was having huge stools - I mean, MASSIVE - like a horse. They were solid, but he was going many times a day (like 4 to 6 times a day). So we were suspecting that he wasn't getting the nutrients that he needed. When he refused to eat cheese (his favorite treat) we took him to the vet and insisted something was wrong. The vet did blood work, a normal stool test, a physical exam, and found nothing wrong and said he was slender, but had healthy muscle mass. The next day he started having blood/mucusy diarrhea. We put Marley on a bland diet and took him back to the vet. I suggested giardia to the vet after looking up symptoms on the net. He didn't seem to think it was possible (which surprised me given the time of year and the area of New England we're in). So we did the more expensive, protozoa-specific stool test and it came back positive for giardia and at the very infected end of the scale. (In regards to Legend, I know that it is possible for dogs who are infected with giardia to come back with negative stool samples because of the cycles of the cysts (which aren't always present in the stool).
Marley's diarrhea stopped about two days after being on the Metradizole and his appetite and energy returned with a vengeance. It was like getting a new dog. He has about two more days of the medication and then we recheck his stool in two more weeks.
I hope this helps - but definitely keep it up at the vet if you are concerned. I'm certainly no doctor! | 
