[newlifecowgirl]

I am really out of Ideas here. my 3 1/2 month old female GSD has had diarrhea for 4 days now. My vet doesn't really have any more idea's at this point. We have tested her for Coccidia, Giardia, worms ( we then wormed her with Panacur, just in case) she's on Probiotics to help keep her digestive tract healthy. She was tested for Parvo, negative. She is eating, drinking, playing and acting completely normal, maybe not playing with her tug toy as much. We have dealt with a lot of diarrhea since bringing her home, 1st she had worms and ate a big ol' cow pie before I could stop her, her food was too rich so I am giving her chicken and rice and that cleared it up, I have been slowly integrating her new kibble into her food and she seems to be doing fine with it. but she wasn't gaining any weight because there just wasn't enough protein in her diet. So taking my vets advice I added some browned and fat drained ground beef a little at a time to her food, and now she's gaining weight beautifully, her coat is nice and shiny, and she just looks wonderful, but she's got diarrhea again, and some gas with it. Sometimes its semi-solid, and occasionally it is just plain runny brown milk shake, so today I gave her some pumpkin in her food. I don't really know what else to do, and my vet isn't really helping at this point. Has anyone else dealt with their pups having a lot of diarrhea at a young age? I kinda feel like the poop queen at this point:help:

 

[GSDAlphaMom]

I am right there with you newlife. I have 13.5 wk old. She came with coccidia, hook worms, and giardia. Of course we figured that at one at a time. We'd treat one and when the diarrhea didn't go away we would discover the next issue. She had 4 straight weeks of horrible diarrhea so I'll share that poop queen crown with you.

Finally when we started treating the giardia her poos got better. She is still on metronidazole. Her stools started loosening up again a couple of days ago but not to the extent they were. I'm hoping the coccidia isn't back. Before they started getting better I thought here food might be part of the problem but since they were good for a week I'm not sure. She is on Wellness.

The chicken/rice; hamburger/rice didn't work for her but that's because she had so many parasites. I would make sure you rinse the ground beef to be sure all the fat is off, that in itself can cause loose stool.

What kibble do you have her on? You said she has had diarrhea for 4 days...how long have you had her? Has her stool been good up until 4 days ago?

 

[onyx'girl]

Perfect form by the Honest Kitchen will help firm up the stool but won't "cure" the reason for it...At least it may help the dog get the digestive system back on track.

 

[JeanKBBMMMAAN]

You could look at...

SIBO or antibiotic responsive diarrhea
SIBO - EPI * Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency and do the GI bloodwork through Texas A/M

Giardia treated with Panacur:
Giardia

Look at the food she is being fed and how much. I like to limit ingredients with puppies at first - something simple like some of the Pinnacle or California Natural varieties.

I am sure there are other things but those are the first that come to mind with puppies.

 

[newlifecowgirl]

I have her on Nutra-nuggets now, but she's only getting a little bit of it with her chicken and rice ( or beef) because I don't want to switch her over to it too quickly.
My girl had roundworms when I got her, and has been tested 2 different times for Parvo, coccidia, Giardia and any other parasite. Always negative. She's been wormed 2x ( we live on a farm with cows, horses etc.. and she loves to eat the poop! she's not allowed in the pastures anymore) I have had her since just before she was 8 weeks old. No we have kinda been battling diarrhea on and off for awhile, it will be good and solid for awhile then go back to runny. I don't want to stop giving her beef because she's FINALLY gaining weight back, she was sooooo skinny. makes my head hurt sometimes!

 

[bocron]

We recently took one of our German imports to a vet nutrition specialist due to some major issues he was having. He'd been to our regular vet 3-4 times and put on all kinds of meds with no real results. We found this new vet through a friend, she is a DVM who is also a holistic vet and has an additional degree in nutrition (which most VETS do not get training in beyond about 2-3 weeks taught by dog food companies). Anyway, the first thing she told us is that beef is the most likely allergen in canines (of the proteins) so maybe you should try just chicken and rice. She actually had us put our guy on Wellness Simple solutions since it is only a few ingredients and is easy to eliminate most allergens and then start introducing other stuff. She also had him take probiotics.
Anyway, he was a different dog in less than a week. We have now taken him off the Wellness food and now have him on a chicken based food, but found he can eat chicken or fish with no problems.

 

[Stosh]

Stosh had most of those same ailments- the only thing that helped was brown rice with rinsed ground beef, then I added his regular dry kibble, grain free Nature's Variety. Seems he couldn't tolerate chicken. All I can tell you is with after all the meds and treatments for the parasites, worms, excessively high bacteria levels, it all worked out and now he's fine. Oh, and I did restrict everything he could ingest- no pig's ears, bully sticks, etc, just let him chew nylabones, puppy Kong, stuff like that. Hang in there, try a grain and chicken free kibble, stick with cooked beef and brown rice- see what happens

 

[newlifecowgirl]

We recently took one of our German imports to a vet nutrition specialist due to some major issues he was having. He'd been to our regular vet 3-4 times and put on all kinds of meds with no real results. We found this new vet through a friend, she is a DVM who is also a holistic vet and has an additional degree in nutrition (which most VETS do not get training in beyond about 2-3 weeks taught by dog food companies). Anyway, the first thing she told us is that beef is the most likely allergen in canines (of the proteins) so maybe you should try just chicken and rice. She actually had us put our guy on Wellness Simple solutions since it is only a few ingredients and is easy to eliminate most allergens and then start introducing other stuff. She also had him take probiotics.
Anyway, he was a different dog in less than a week. We have now taken him off the Wellness food and now have him on a chicken based food, but found he can eat chicken or fish with no problems.

I had her on just a chicken and rice diet, for awhile and she was always STARVING, and was losing weight. With beef she has gained weight back but now has diarrhea again. I will look into wellness, and Honest kitchen. I just want my girl happy and healthy ( she's got tons of energy and is acting normal, just has some yucky diarrhea)

 

[Stosh]

You might offer some Gatorade to prevent dehydration. Mine drank it as long as they needed it, then they refused it. Sounds as though she's heading in the right direction

 

[newlifecowgirl]

I am giving her free choice, available all the time water, plus she LOVES to play and chew on ice cubes I have a sneaking suspicion if I give her something else in her water we will get more diarrhea. I have noticed a correlation that she gets diarrhea and then has a major growth spurt. Has anyone else encountered this? I think she's still a bit young to be teething, but I know they can get diarrhea while teething as well.

 

[crazyboutdogs]

Are the probiotics actually "live" like the kind you find in yogurt? Not all are live. It's the live ones that do the most good. Also, along with probiotics you should also give prebiotics and digestive enzymes. I just had wonderful results with products from a company called Nzymes. They worked so well for Storm's allergies that I started to add the Bacpac live probiotic to my pug/terrier's food because he always has loose stool and it firmed him up very nicely. Also, my lab/shepherd mix couldn't handle chicken either. He would instantly get the diarrhea from it. Even my own cooked chicken would start him up.

If you want to check out the nzymes go to Nzymes.com.

 

[bocron]

i would quit the free choice. Generally not recommended. If you are worried about weight gain/loss then feed her 2/3 set meals a day,but the free choice sets you up for other problems. (The vet I worked for was originally an army vet and was involved in studies involving food, health and training)

 

[Stosh]

I agree with bocron about free feeding- definitely go to set meal times. I kept food out for Stosh all the time because he needed to gain after being sick but it backfired- he got to be a picky eater so I tried all kinds of things and it just made it worse. When he stayed at a kennel for 5 days they fed him twice a day and the woman called and asked if she could increase his food because he inhaled it so fast. I couldn't believe it. Now he's on 2 set meals, he knows when they're coming and for the first time is eager to eat and actually finishes it. If your pup really needs to gain, you might want to make a batch of satin balls as a temporary measure to add weight.

 

[GSDBESTK9]

The 2 major mistakes our puppy buyers make when taking a puppy home and having this problem is:

1. They are OVER feeding!!!!
2. They don't give the puppy enough time to settle on a food/kibble.

Giving the puppy too much kibble and on top of that treats will make runny poops. Not giving them time to settle/get used to a food/kibble will give them runny poops! Some times it takes weeks for them to settle on a new kibble.

 

[fkeeley]

I had the same exact problem that you are having. She was tested and re-tested for worms; put on antibiotics to "reset" her system but every time she went from hamburger/rice to regular food, soft or loose stools. My recommendation would be to be patient. As long as she's not going every 2 hrs, my puppy (now 3 1/2 mo old) - after 2 weeks of mushy yucky stuff has now beautiful solid poop ! It just took that long for her little system to adjust to the food. She was on Canidae and I thought the problem was the food (for her diarrhea) so I switched her to Wellness large breed puppy food. Come to find out, I had given her too many treats to start with (including pig ears) :hammer: - that's what i think gave her the diarrhea not the food that she was eating. Too late now but it took 2 weeks of feeding her the dry food to get her to have solid stools. Don't give your puppy any treats except for her food (even as treats) until her system is back to normal. That way you eliminate any other possibilities of what could be going wrong with her. Make sure she has plenty of water available too. As long as it's not water, going to the bathroom every 2 hrs or so, mushy stools are not that uncommon in puppies from what i hear. If it doesn't get better, you may then try going to a different source of protein in her food. I was getting ready to switch to a lamb meal since she was doing so well on hamburger (thinking she might not tolerate chicken) when her stools went solid. My point...be a little patient and if she's on hamburger/rice right now, slowly transition to her dry food. It could take even 3 weeks before you see solid stools again.

 

[fkeeley]

The 2 major mistakes our puppy buyers make when taking a puppy home and having this problem is:

1. They are OVER feeding!!!!
2. They don't give the puppy enough time to settle on a food/kibble.

Giving the puppy too much kibble and on top of that treats will make runny poops. Not giving them time to settle/get used to a food/kibble will give them runny poops! Some times it takes weeks for them to settle on a new kibble.

Yeah Carolina, you hit a home run with this one! I learned the hard way :blush:. I was concentrating so hard in giving her treats to "make her happy" going to the crate while I left to go to work that I didn't think about what I was doing to her poor little stomach

 

[Smithie86]

If needed, go back for at least a week for the chicken and rice. No treats. Get the stomach settled. Do not overfeed.

Good point above. Yogurt does not always contain what is needed. We use Kefir on a normal basis; unsweetened and unflavored. at Krogers or Publix in the South.

We are lucky. No allergies here for food.

 

[VegasResident]

We went through weeks of loose stools, etc with our boy (5 months old now) and by doing the following we finally got cleared up! And yes he was teething (you often wonder if they are swallowing blood which does not help plus the pain and stress of teething)

Mind you his play, attitude appetite were all normal, just the dang loose stools and negative fecal tests for everything.

This is where we landed

Medications: Flagyl and a bismuth pill from vet (3 weeks worth).
Probiotic: Fortiflora

1. Give three even meals a day of the following: 2:1 ratio of TWICE COOKED white rice (make it mushy) and either boiled chicken or hamburger (lean cooked and strained) and one snack in evening of just pumpkin and probiotic. DO NOT OVERFEED AS THEY WILL GO RIGHT TO LOOSE

2. Put the meds in breakfast and dinner. Do not give at same time as probiotics

3. Put full packet probiotics in lunch (no other meds) and another full packet in a tablespoon of pumpkin around 7 or 8 pm.

4. Once we saw some firming we moved to a 3 ingredient food, in our case California Natural Puppy Lamb and Rice (tons of GSD puppy owners here turned to this brand) over a 12 day schedule evenly divided across the three meals. We started with only 1/4 cup per day divided across the three meals which was only like 10 kibble pieces per meal (very slow increase each day). Do not change food if you see slight softening. Constant change will send them right back to day one.

Anyway he has now had decent poop since Saturday....YAY!!!! As this has been the bane of our existence since October 24th.

 

[fkeeley]

Could teething makes them have loose stools? Like kids, when they are teething they get a low grade fever?

 

[VegasResident]

Yeah Carolina, you hit a home run with this one! I learned the hard way :blush:. I was concentrating so hard in giving her treats to "make her happy" going to the crate while I left to go to work that I didn't think about what I was doing to her poor little stomach

Agree also. Premium kibble never looks like enough and owners throw in too much. For example with the one we are using now only 2.25 cups A DAY is the correct amount for his weight and age. That is only 3/4 cup per meal and it looks like so little but it is not and treat to crate up or kennel up is only a finger full of lean burger cooked. He is gaining weight just fine now