Rescue dog, normal blood tests & stool sample but soft stool

1321 Views 23 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Bluebird, Jun 4, 2021

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · May 18, 2021 (Edited)

Hi dog lovers,

We got our dog from stray.gr 2 months ago. He is a boy, 7 years old, 35kg and practically lived all of his life in a private field with other rescue dogs with the same volunteer.

The problem is his stool. It is soft 95% of the time. We did a thorough run of blood tests and took stool sample and he is absolutely fine. Also, he's got lots of appetite and in a very good mood.

The volunteers used to feed him Equilibrio dry food + Dr Clauder lamb/apple canned food (a little bit of canned food because he doesn't like dry food).
When we got him, we continued Equilibrio + another brand of canned food in the hope that we will eventually change to Hill's or Royal Canin, dry food only.

His stool was ok the first days but the next ones it was runny. We thought that it was runny because we didn't have the same canned food. Since then, with the help of our vet, we've tried:

Hill's i/d dry and then dry + canned w/d
Hill's w/d dry and then dry + canned w/d (he vomits w/d)
Royal Canin dry
Nutram lamb/rice
And now we went back to equilibrio

We don't know what to do. Our vet says we need to stick to one food for about a week, but his stool is 99% runny. There might be one time in the week with good/normal solid stool.

Any ideas?
Thanks!!!

1 - 20 of 24 Posts

RonE

· #2 · May 18, 2021

Giardia is a nasty and common parasite and, I think, requires a special test. It's easy to treat but doesn't go away very well on it's own.

Also, some dogs react badly to sudden and frequent diet changes. That's why the vet advised sticking with one for a while. When you do switch, do it gradually by slowly increasing the portion of the new food.

We had chronic soft (though not runny) stools with our little mutt. I finally switched him to a fresh, refrigerated food and his stool firmed up and his eye boogers stopped. But there is no one food that's going to work for all dogs.

Good luck.

LeoRose

· #3 · May 18, 2021

Its counterintuitive, but try just giving him a bit less food, and see if that helps any. Overfeeding can cause loose stools.

Kensi

· #4 · May 19, 2021

If you've switched 5 times in the last 2 months, that could be part of it. My dog takes about a month to adjust to a new food.

Reactions: 1

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 19, 2021

LeoRose said:
Its counterintuitive, but try just giving him a bit less food, and see if that helps any. Overfeeding can cause loose stools.

Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by "overfeeding"? We haven't given him absolutely anything else (treats, bones etc.) other than his food.He is supposed to eat 350g, so we give him 175g in the morning and 175g early in the evening.

Do you mean we should give him less than the recommended dose?
Thanks

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #6 · May 19, 2021

Kensi said:
If you've switched 5 times in the last 2 months, that could be part of it. My dog takes about a month to adjust to a new food.

But our vet said that we don't need to do it gradually when it comes to Hill's Prescription Diet i/d or Hill's Prescription Diet w/d.

LeoRose

· #7 · May 19, 2021

Morfeas said:
Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by "overfeeding"? We haven't given him absolutely anything else (treats, bones etc.) other than his food.He is supposed to eat 350g, so we give him 175g in the morning and 175g early in the evening.

Do you mean we should give him less than the recommended dose?
Thanks

Yes, give him less than the recommended amount. I find that my dogs very rarely need as much food as the label says to feed.

DaySleepers

· #8 · May 19, 2021

Agree with the others here. I'd choose one food and stick with it for a good couple months, feeding a little less than the recommended serving (obviously if he seems to be having a really bad reaction to the food - like with the vomiting on w/d - switch, but otherwise keep it as consistent as possible). I'd be inclined to choose a digestive care/sensitive stomach formula, at least until you get his current troubles managed, and once he's stable you can consider transitioning slowly to whatever you want to use as his regular food. I'd also ask the vet about giardia, because RonE's absolutely right, it's tricky to diagnose and tricky to treat, and the communal living situation you describe him being in at the rescue would be perfect for spreading it.

RonE

· #9 · May 19, 2021

Most dogs, unless they are working dogs, don't need as much food as the bag recommends and will become obese or sick if you give them that much. Our little mutt is a pretty active guy and he would be a scruffy bowling ball if we fed him the recommended portions.

Edit: I just realized that my signature photo doesn't exactly show "a pretty active guy." That's what happens post-activity. He's a sprinter, not a marathoner.

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #10 · May 26, 2021

I just called the vet and I'm waiting for him to tell me whether he checked for Giardia in his stool sample. If not, I'll send him another sample to exclude this scenario.
Also, it's been 1 week since we reduced his daily dose from 360g to 250g. It seemed a bit better, but not all the time.

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #11 · May 27, 2021

RonE said:
Giardia is a nasty and common parasite and, I think, requires a special test. It's easy to treat but doesn't go away very well on it's own.

He was tested for Giardia and it was negative.

Bluebird

· #12 · May 27, 2021

Morfeas said:
Hi dog lovers,

We got our dog from stray.gr 2 months ago. He is a boy, 7 years old, 35kg and practically lived all of his life in a private field with other rescue dogs with the same volunteer.

The problem is his stool. It is soft 95% of the time. We did a thorough run of blood tests and took stool sample and he is absolutely fine. Also, he's got lots of appetite and in a very good mood.

The volunteers used to feed him Equilibrio dry food + Dr Clauder lamb/apple canned food (a little bit of canned food because he doesn't like dry food).
When we got him, we continued Equilibrio + another brand of canned food in the hope that we will eventually change to Hill's or Royal Canin, dry food only.

His stool was ok the first days but the next ones it was runny. We thought that it was runny because we didn't have the same canned food. Since then, with the help of our vet, we've tried:

Hill's i/d dry and then dry + canned w/d

Hill's w/d dry and then dry + canned w/d (he vomits w/d)

Royal Canin dry

Nutram lamb/rice

And now we went back to equilibrio

We don't know what to do. Our vet says we need to stick to one food for about a week, but his stool is 99% runny. There might be one time in the week with good/normal solid stool.

Any ideas?
Thanks!!!

I would take a stool sample to the vet for analysis. I would put dog on chicken breast and rice for a week to see if that clears it up. I am guessing a food allergy or bacteria parasite in colon. Metrazole may be prescribed. Just ideas. I would definitely work with the vet.

Reactions: 1

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 27, 2021

Bluebird said:
I would take a stool sample to the vet for analysis. I would put dog on chicken breast and rice for a week to see if that clears it up. I am guessing a food allergy or bacteria parasite in colon. Metrazole may be prescribed. Just ideas. I would definitely work with the vet.

- We did give the stool sample to the doctor and all tests were negative.

-We gave him chicken breast and his poo was perfect, but as soon as we started adding dry food, he went back to softies.

- The vet said that the parasite, if there is any, does not respond to the antibiotic now and that it might need a new antibiotic.

- We gave him metrazol for 7 days in April and then 15 days in May. Still nothing!

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #14 · May 27, 2021

Bluebird said:
I am guessing a food allergy or bacteria parasite in colon.

That's what the vet thinks too

Bluebird

· #15 · May 27, 2021

Bluebird said:
I would take a stool sample to the vet for analysis. I would put dog on chicken breast and rice for a week to see if that clears it up. I am guessing a food allergy or bacteria parasite in colon. Metrazole may be prescribed. Just ideas. I would definitely work with the vet.

I had the same issue with my Teddy Bear dog. I put him back on the chicken rice and the medication for two weeks. Reduced medication to once a day and slowly added Hills d/i to the chicken mix until he was eating Hills only. He was then doing fine. He stayed on the one pill medication because if he went off he got diarrhea again. Sure understand it is frustrating trying to figure it out.

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #16 · May 27, 2021

Bluebird said:
He stayed on the one pill medication because if he went off he got diarrhea again.

Do you mean that you give him the medication for ever?

Bluebird

· #17 · May 27, 2021

Morfeas said:
Do you mean that you give him the medication for ever?

I did with him, but he was 10 years old and lived until he was 16. I am not sure how old your dog is. That was my Vet’s advice to me.

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #18 · May 27, 2021

He is 7 years old and in good health (apart from this problem)

Bluebird

· #19 · May 28, 2021

Morfeas said:
He is 7 years old and in good health (apart from this problem)

My dog was healthy too but he couldn’t get rid of the Giardia. Actually he lived a very long good life. I did read some of the other people’s posts and they had good points about slowly introducing a food and sticking with it. I finally found Hills intestinal diet call I/d. It is a prescription food. You might want to ask your vet about it. Best of luck with this. Keep us posted about how he doing.

Reactions: 1

Morfeas

Discussion Starter · #20 · May 28, 2021

Bluebird said:
My dog was healthy too but he couldn’t get rid of the Giardia. Actually he lived a very long good life. I did read some of the other people’s posts and they had good points about slowly introducing a food and sticking with it. I finally found Hills intestinal diet call I/d. It is a prescription food. You might want to ask your vet about it. Best of luck with this. Keep us posted about how he doing.

We;ve already tried Hill's Prescription Diet i/d for Digestive Care and w/d for diabetes as they also give it for colitis. He can't tolerate any of them in his stomach. He vomits all Hills dry or canned food.

1 - 20 of 24 Posts

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