New baby, growing up (Photos!) but starting to worry me.

[surfologist87]

My wife and I got a new girl a few months ago She was 6 months old(39lbs) and now she is about to turn 11 months(49 lbs).


Recently her appetite started really diminishing, and her poop has gotten really loose/liquid. She was on Iams large breed puppy for a while, then we switched her up to Blue Buffalo large breed puppy. I am in the process of switching her over to an adult version of Blue Buffalo.

I noticed this before even starting the Blue, so I feel like I can rule that out. But it was getting worse and worse, so we took her to the vet and had her checked out. Vet said she had roundworms and gave us a dose of 'Drontal Plus' a week and a half ago. Said her appetite and poops are bad because of the worms..and we should see an improvement in a week.

Still no improvement, she hasnt been eating much and she is getting very very thin, I can see she is too thin. Her poop is soupy 90 percent of the time. I feel like her color isnt as rich as it used to be either. She is still very active, loves walks, playing and acts quite happy. Overall, something is affecting her, giving her diarrhea and loss of appetite which is making her look terrible.

What i do just to get her to eat a little bit is pour just a slight amount of chicken broth on her food and microwave it and she usually ends up eating all of it. I checked out the nutrition facts and I measure 2 TBSP of chicken broth, (100mg of sodium). I am going to the store today to get lower sodium chicken broth. She seems to like it so the lower sodium will keep her from getting too much salt. (Ive only done it a couple times so i feel it isnt any worse than her getting a couple table scraps which she isnt allowed to have right now anyway )

I wanted to get some input from some more experienced owners if you dont mind. I was hoping to see some improvements by now and could use some help getting her healthy.

Kona! (Third picture is most recent and shows how thin she is)

[GatorDog]

I have always had a hard time getting my boy to eat and keeping weight on him. We had diarrhea problems on a ton of food as well. Blue is a good food, but it just might not be a good fit for your dog. I would switch to a more limited ingredient, grain free diet. Maybe Natural Balance? They have quite a few different varieties that might help. My dog has no allergies but is sensitive to lots of different things, and the Lamb and Rice L.I.D. has been doing wonders for him!

http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/dog...s/allergy.html

[RinTin12]

I'm sorry to hear that your girl isn't feeling good. Hopefully the meds will help with the worms and everything else will clear up on its own. Honestly when I first read your post I thought something along the lines of parvo but being that she is still very active it soesnt fit (which im thankful for bcuz I went thru that before with a pup and it was heartbreaking). Might be the food though which can always cause bowel changes.

[GSDAlphaMom]

She isn't gaining weight because it's going right through her (loose stool food moves out too quick, constipation food moves through too slow). Have you had her checked for giardia? It's a different test than worms/coccidia. If she is clear of parasites then I would try a different food. GSD's that can't handle Blue is not uncommon. I put my puppies on Innova and keep them on it until 18 months.

If she still has issue after all the above, next steps would be IBD/SIBO testing.

[marti]

A common GSD problem, picky eater, out the other end as juice or almost most of the time.
Been there, and they done that.

Stools that can be picked up easily are kibble only. I'm not sold that kibble is all that healthy otherwise why will they leave it for days and go without and why are so many dying of cancer?
All of them had turned down just about every brand, not the low-end ones, out there even coming out of Shelters.
GSDs have an unusual digestive system compared with other dogs I've owned. Seems like something is always out of balance somewhere between mouth and behind.

Its like a gorgeous car with a common consistent-with-all models fault. A Jaguar comes to mind.
I did get two GSDs to consistently eat Trader Joe's, Lamb & Rice and not get bored of it. Both always left some in the bowl. So did my skinny ex-

[Mrs.K]

Take.the.dog.to.the.vet!

[trudy]

add a heaping spoon of pumpkin to each meal, she should be fed twice a day, 1/2 total each meal, and pure canned pumpkin, not pie filling, will help bind her..do this only after the vet assures you she has no parasites..I find they like the taste and eat it well..also I find it helps to crate the dog for an hour after eating to settle it..this again only for high energy dogs, but by training relax after meals, always a good idea,,I also would try a grain free diet, grain is filler only and loose stools don't need corn

[Cassidy's Mom]

Originally Posted by GSDAlphaMom

She isn't gaining weight because it's going right through her (loose stool food moves out too quick, constipation food moves through too slow). Have you had her checked for giardia? It's a different test than worms/coccidia. If she is clear of parasites then I would try a different food. GSD's that can't handle Blue is not uncommon. I put my puppies on Innova and keep them on it until 18 months.

If she still has issue after all the above, next steps would be IBD/SIBO testing.

Ditto. Was she tested for anything besides worms? If she has coccidia, the usual treatment is Albon: Coccidia (Coccidiosis) in Dogs: A Cause of Diarrhea

If she has giardia (and even if she had the standard test for it and was negative she might still have it, the giardia antigen test is much more accurate, but it seems like you usually have to ask for it, it's not routinely used), Drontol Plus, Panacur, or Flagyl are used to treat it: Untitled Document

Other things that are common in the breed are Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), and Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI). These can be diagnosed with blood tests, but the blood needs to be taken after at least a 12 hour fast for accurate results: EPI in Dogs

EPI and SIBO often go hand in hand, but not always. And SIBO by itself can either be a short term acute thing that does not recur, or a long term chronic thing that requires lifelong management with medication or a special diet, or both. Keefer had SIBO when he was younger, but he's been fine ever since, and he's 6 years old now.

Please get a proper diagnosis so you can begin treatment as soon as possible. If you decide to test for EPI/SIBO you might want to print out the page I linked to above and take it with you to the vet and discuss the tests with him/her. If s/he doesn't have a lot of GSD patients your vet may not be that familiar with the prevalence of these conditions in this breed and may not think to test for them, so you need to be an advocate for your dog.

Long term malabsorption is serious, (untreated EPI can lead to death) but is usually manageable.

[Cassidy's Mom]

Originally Posted by Mrs.K

Take.the.dog.to.the.vet!

Absolutely, but she's already done that and all the vet has come up with so far is worms. Obviously, there's more going on than that, and having some direction to go, some questions to ask and tests to request, will only help this dog. When Keefer was having his digestive issues as a puppy it took awhile to figure out why. There are a gazilion things that can cause digestive upset, including food allergies and intolerances, any number of medical issues, or even a combination of both. It's a process of elimination to figure out what the problem is so you can deal with it.

I would have never known to ask for the giardia antigen test if not for people sharing their experiences on this board. Keefer had had every type of fecal test possible, all negative, including the regular giardia test. But he came back positive on the antigen test, so we put him on a course of flagyl. I would have never heard of EPI or SIBO if not for the threads on this board, and I had to request those tests from my vet too. Once we got our diagnosis of SIBO, we could treat him and clear it up.

[Lu_gu]

Our now 7 month old pup had stool issues since the first day we brought her home (this Sept) up until a month ago. Her stools were never firm and she also went through roundworms and giardia. We finally ended up speaking with her breeder after endless research on different dog food and allergies, medications to treat her roundoworms, giardia and sudden onset of her diarrhea which would be explosive at times, and trips to the vet where tests would come back normal. When speaking to her breeder we came to the conclusion that she probably had an irritated gut due to everything she went through. We began incorportaing probiotics, and pumpkin puree at each meal and she has made such an improvement since then.

I would look into probiotics and in the meantime boil some rice and chicken for her to eat to calm her stomach and hopefully firm up her stools