Any advice for a bad digestive system :(

[danehdee]

My pup (7 months) is constantly on and off with his diarrhea...
He has been to the vet several times and I've dropped off many stool samples...
Nothing has come up .. in good health, nothing he has been tested for has shown up... all they can think of is a bad digestive system!

We put him on Natural Balance lamb and rice for about 2 months now and everything went from night to day.. he had normal #2's and things were great.. and now is back to the same diarrhea!

I've called them vet so waiting to hear for some help!
Anyone.. please.. lol !!!!

We thought maybe he should be off of grains... but grains sometimes help with bad digestive stomachs

[PaddyD]

Did he eat something 'new'? Like a bone with marrow in it? New treats? Table scraps?
So many things can set it off. Good luck at the vets.

[fuzzybunny]

Wow, your post sounds exactly like what I went through with Jazz last year. Jazz suffered from extreme diarrhea and tests all came back fine. Have you tested him for SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth)? Jazz was also on the Natural Balance and similar to your guy did well at first and then it went bad again. I tried a lot of different foods but the one that works for him is Purina Pro Plan for Sensitive Skin and Stomachs. It's a Salmon and Rice formula. A few posters on here who have IBD dogs use this food and it works for them. We don't know if Jazz has IBD but we suspected which is why I tried this food on the advice of another poster.

[WVGSD]

I also have an adult GSD who went through cycles of diarrhea and several different food changes as I was trying to make sure that the diarrhea was not from a food intolerance. My vet okayed a trial of Tylan powder that I put in empty gelatin capsules and - no more diarrhea. This pretty much confirms our suspicion that my male has small interstinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO.

I also feed him Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach kibble and he does well on it.

[sable123]

Originally Posted by danehdee

My pup (7 months) is constantly on and off with his diarrhea...
He has been to the vet several times and I've dropped off many stool samples...
Nothing has come up .. in good health, nothing he has been tested for has shown up... all they can think of is a bad digestive system!

We put him on Natural Balance lamb and rice for about 2 months now and everything went from night to day.. he had normal #2's and things were great.. and now is back to the same diarrhea!

I've called them vet so waiting to hear for some help!
Anyone.. please.. lol !!!!

We thought maybe he should be off of grains... but grains sometimes help with bad digestive stomachs

Red meat diets are very bad for dogs like this, harder to digest and high ash. That is such a low protein food for a young dog. Try the Purina formula mentioned above. Works well, high quality, thoroughly tested.

[fuzzybunny]

Similar to Shannon's dog, Jazz did test positive for SIBO so it's worth checking out if you haven't already. The Tylan powder helped Jazz as well.

[danehdee]

Thanks so much - Is there a medication for SIBO or just the Tylan?
We are considering now a switch off of grains and trying natural balance Venision & sweet potato - Grain Free ... If that doesn't go well we will check out the Purina! Or someone has suggested a hypoallergic food!?

[danehdee]

When I speak to my vet today I will ask about SIBO.
Muchly appreciated

[BlackthornGSD]

You might try a fish based food--seems to work better for many dogs with touchy stomachs.

Some suggestions are California Natural Fish and Sweet Potato, the Purina salmon-based Sensitive Skin and Stomach mentioned above, or even some of the grain-free fish-based kibbles.

Unfortunately, I've been reading that Natural Balance has not done a good job of being consistent in their food ingredients--tests showed that even their Limited Ingredient Diet contained protein sources other than what was claimed. What’s In Your Dog Food? (Maybe) Not What You Think! Dogs In Training

[s14roller]

Originally Posted by danehdee

Thanks so much - Is there a medication for SIBO or just the Tylan?
We are considering now a switch off of grains and trying natural balance Venision & sweet potato - Grain Free ... If that doesn't go well we will check out the Purina! Or someone has suggested a hypoallergic food!?

I have been battling the same thing (and for around the same time!). My pup is going on 8 months, and her symptoms were always the same:

1 week of solid stool, followed by 1-2 days of straight liquid stool...back to normal, then liquid, etc.

Had her on Wellness LBP for 2 bags worth, inconsistent, so moved her back to Innova (breeder had them on this) and still inconsistent. We did 2 treatments of Flagyl and 1 treatment of Pancur during the last 6 months. Her stool always came back negative. Before getting further tests and possible Tylan treatment, my vet wanted to see if it was definitely the diet or not. She wanted to try the IAMs low-residue vet formula, which I hated the idea but would try anything that at point, so we tried it. So far, she's had pretty good stool for 2 weeks. I'll give it another week before I make the call, but if she has 3-4 weeks of solid stool (she never had this before) then it was probably the food. Next steps will be to try the PurinaOne SS formula that everyone else has pointed out, and see how that works out. From there, if she can tolerate an even better food, great.

You may want to try the vet formula just to see. Mine had "muddy" stool on the first week she was on it (maybe her system was adapting to it) and then solid from there. Next steps after the food for me, would be to do blood work to test for EPI, SIBO, etc. We'll see if it needs to come to that.