[Mbradley8519]

I have a 15 week choc lab and she has been to the vet 3 times in the last month with bad loose stool. I feel so bad for her and she is not getting better. I'm not sure what to do or if their is something else I should try.

3 weeks ago she was up every hour or so crying to be took out and had very loose stool, basically green watery stool. That morning I took her to the vet. They gave her fluids in a camel pouch thing and methronidazole, and a shot of antibiotics as well as two cans of WD. The WD did major help but now two weeks later she has really runny green stool.

Once the WD was out they told me to feed her chicken and rice. She was ok on that not that great though. 4 days on chicken and rice I added about 20 pieces of puppy Formm and she immediately ran outside with running stool. Could it be her food? She loves it and I have heard great things about it.

Yesterday she had a shot appointment and i brought up that she wasn't getting better. The vet gave me floria florda(sp?) to sprinkle on her food and more methronidazole. She is still on chicken and rice and about 20 pieces of formm puppy food and that's still not helping...any suggestions? Should I take her back to the vet today?

We leave for the beach for a week on Saturday and I don't want anything bad to happen there!

Should I switch her food? Add pumpkin? I'm lost!

 

[zhaor]

Did the vet actually test for parasites and bacteria or did they just give her fluids and antibiotics?

Adding pumpkin is really for adding fiber and probably won't be any help.

 

[Mbradley8519]

They tested her and everything came back normal...

 

[zhaor]

Well if everything came back normal, she could be just reacting to something in the Fromm. By all accounts Fromm should be a fairly good food. You said she was ok on W/D which ingredients wise isn't particularly good. Did the chicken and rice without Fromm work at all? Did the diarrhea start from you feeding Fromm? Does the food smell rancid?

A scoop of plain yogurt could help to add back some probiotics to aide in digestion though the bacteria might just get all killed off by the methronidazole anyways so i don't know.

You could try a different food. Some dogs actually do better on crappier food. It could be some specific ingredient in Fromm that she's reacting to.

Honestly I don't know. 3 weeks and it seems like your vet hasn't figured out anything and is still just giving the same antibiotics. How much do you trust your vet? Maybe get a second opinion from a different vet?

 

[Mbradley8519]

She was fine on the Formm for the first 2-3 weeks once I switched her to it. She is okay when taking the chicken and rice but it's still not that great of stool.

I think maybe I should just try a different brand of food with the chicken and rice and see if that helps. What type of food for a large choc lab puppy would be good. I really did not want to feed her a poor food.

 

[hanksimon]

Most Labs can eat anything... a sick dog is another matter. Taste of the Wild seems to be getting good marks currently. You might also look for something with Salmon and sweet potato (4Health, or Costco brand) or a Lamb based food to help rule out food sensitivities.

I believe that a tablespoon of yoghurt won't hurt. And, a tablespoon of plain pumpkin won't hurt either.

(I suggest that you close the bag of Fromm for now, and investigate if there was something suspicious about the bag, but focus on the dog, now)

The multiple changes in food may extend the soft (not runny) diarrhea for another week, and the pumpkin may help clear that up.

Pick a couple of small fresh bags of a dogfood that you're OK with (smaller bags tend to be 'fresher') to keep her on for a couple of weeks... to re-build her system back to normal.

 

[zhaor]

Well, Diamond just had a salmonella recall back in May I think. Taste of the wild was on the list but I wasn't really part of the affected batches. I'm still feeding it.

The thing that I don't like about pumpkin is that it seems to be more of an "artificial" way of hardening up stool. The pumpkin is fiber which help keep the stool more...connected and absorb water and make stool seem more firm. I could be wrong but I don't think it actually does anything to help the underlying causes.

 

[JulieK1967]

Did they test specifically for Giardia? It can be tricky to find and, in my experience, requires a separate test and, of course, an additional fee.

 

[3doglady]

I agree, if the vet has cleared her for parasites, you might try a different protein source. My lab doesn't do well with chicken. We typically stick with Lamb and rice or duck and buffalo formulas. Mine did well on TOTW, Earthborn and California Naturals. (btw, I've tried flora before and found no improvement, but that's just mine).

 

[hanksimon]

Pumpkin will not help with disease or parasites. But once those are cleared up, pumpkin can help calm residual bowel inflammation... and it doesn't hurt anything.

 

[Mbradley8519]

Finally it seems like I've figured it out! I didn't really think too much of changing her food for a few reasons...one, she loves it...two, it's a really good food! Seems she couldn't handle something in it...thinking maybe the protein level? But finally, she is doing awesome on Regal Puppy-a local store and I went over a bunch of food and she swore by Regal so I gave it a try and instantly she is doing better! Hasn't anyone used Regal or have thoughts about the food? Thanks!

 

[zhaor]

Glad to hear the pup is feeling better. I have no experience with the foods but just looking at the ingredient labels, the formula for "Regal Puppy Bites" is comparable to the "Fromm Puppy Gold"

From a pure ingredients point of view, I'm inclined to say the Fromm is slightly better since there is "grain sorghum" in the Regal which is a low quality grain used primarily as livestock feed. Also Regal uses dried beet pulp whereas Fromm uses tomato pomace, both are fillers that are pretty much unavoidable in kibble but tomato pomace is slightly better.

But the important thing is the pup is doing well on it. You may want to eventually look into "grain free" kibble further down the line since dogs aren't meant to process grains. Or look into something more healthy like a raw diet.

 

[hanksimon]

Some dogs do better on a 'lower-quality' food. I chalk it up to too rich a diet, too much protein, but I don't know. Many labs tend to be goats with iron cast stomachs... Mine is one of those... but he also gets soft stools when I feed him some of the better, richer dog foods. ...