Gibbys stomach-UPDATE

Never a dull moment around here with this guy.

So everything was going fine after the first post on this thread...he never got sick again. I decided to keep him on the food he was on and that one only for at least a month and see what food has to do with anything. I had taken him to the vet last week Thursday.  This week on Wed...DH told me he had taken him out about 9 and the pooped ( he had at 5 AM before work also ) and it was fine. Then he asked to go again about 1:30 and it was pretty soft.  At about 4..he did again one soft pile and then a watery one.   He was hungry though..kept looking at his dish and waiting to eat. I did not know about the times DH took him because he went to golf before I got home from work.  I fed him regular.  He was fine. About 2:30 AM he asked to go out and he had the runs. I slipped a Pepto Bismol pill in him.  At about 4 again, this time he puked, figured it was the PB pill and the bread he had with it.

At 5AM there I was cooking chicken and rice.    Gave him about a cup of it about 7. Then DH gave him another cup about 9 when he got up. He was okay that day but tired and not feeling well. He was hungry though...kept looking for food.  He waited for DHs yogurt ( we  let him lick the containers when we eat yogurt ) so his appetite was fine.  He had 1 c of food several times that day Thursday. I talked to the vet in the morning and they said keep him on bland food for a few days.  I have NO CLUE how to compare how much he is eating with chicken and rice compared to the 6 cups of dog food he gets every day.        That night ( thursday ) I fed him one more cup about  7....about  10 before bed he puked it up.  I gave him a Pepcid.     Friday he ate chicken with rice all day....but upped it to 2 cups at a time.  Before bed last night he had about a cup of cooked ground beef and rice. He has not puked again since the one time Thursday night. Yesterday he had one BM it was sickening yellow gold.  It came out in a clump but then watery to cover it up right away so I could not see if the harder stuff was the same color or not. He has not gone since.  This morning he is playing with me...and with some toys..  Yesterday he did also but was kind of tired during the day.  He slept a lot yesterday and all last night.   I will keep him on the bland for the day...and then I'm at a loss.  Don't know if I should slowly add EP to his bland....or get another brand.  He was eating BilJac frozen for breakfast for a few months and that digest very easily.....thinking maybe when he starts with dog food I should do that for a while.

My couple of worries are that the Wed. he got sick he had been chewing on a fresh raw bone and he is so strong and powerful now that he can break peices off.....hoping that something didn't get stuck someplace. THEN I think about possible bacteria...from raw ( sorry raw people but it IS in the back of my head )   I am also thinking...he had been on the EP lamb for just about a week...did it take that long to get to him.........   which is why I'm not sure I should start him back on it after his bland food.   I'm also thinking....if I stick with EP.... He hate the last of his puppy food that he had been on all this time...he has the new lamb formual but before that we have a bag of Duck that he had been eating and Large and Giant Adult....which is fairly new to him also.  Both that and the duck were the first after he turned a year old and I wanted to get him off puppy food.

I want to get him over this episode of what ever he has.  I then want to do the one food thing and see if his touchy stomach gets better.  Then I think.....maybe I need to switch from EP and have no clue which to get him.   Drs are not a lot of help because they yelling at me for switching formulas ( the one vet says to feed him what she feeds hers....Royal Canin...of course she gets big discounts on it )  they shutter at raw bones...... think I'm crazy for cooking fresh food for toppings......and yogurt.     I at least convinced the one doctor that because he is a Dane that is subject to bloat...the I feel its necessary to never sit down a bowl of dry kibble with no fresh food on top. 

Now he is sleeping but that is after eating breakfast, going for a walk, playing and eating yogurt. Quite normal so far.

All due respect....but...bland means bland.  No treats, no bones, no yogurt, etc.  Either Chicken and rice, period.  Or you can get Purina EN from the vet.  Nothing else for three to four days. 

Even if he is looking at the bowl like he is hungry, don't feed him any more than the appropriate ration.  He is not starving.  In fact, I just wonder if he gets too much, by the sound of the post.

The doctors are trying to help.  They are right.  To much switching is simply not a good choice for Gibby and his sensitive stomach.  And, over feeding can be detrimental as well.

Good luck!

CoBuHe

All due respect....but...bland means bland.  No treats, no bones, no yogurt, etc.  Either Chicken and rice, period.  Or you can get Purina EN from the vet.  Nothing else for three to four days. 

Even if he is looking at the bowl like he is hungry, don't feed him any more than the appropriate ration.  He is not starving.  In fact, I just wonder if he gets too much, by the sound of the post.

The doctors are trying to help.  They are right.  To much switching is simply not a good choice for Gibby and his sensitive stomach.  And, over feeding can be detrimental as well.

Good luck!

Thanks,,,,seems we need some good luck here these days...

He licks our yogurt containers.... there is no real yogurt...just a smell more than a taste.   But he hasn't gotten any of the yogurt or cottage cheese that he usually gets with his kibble. I have given him no bones and I haven't been giving him any treats either....mainly because the ones that he has are new and I didn't want to give him anything that he hasn't had before. He does have old bones laying around that he occasionally gnaws on....but thats usually playing not trying to eat such as he does when I give him a fresh raw bone.  When he goes out to be a "good boy" he gets a treat......but these days his treat has been a small piece of plain bread.

I don't know what an appropriate portion is of boiled meat and rice...have no clue how much is too much or not enough.  I know he gets in kibble, 3 cups twice a day...besides getting a cup of cooked meat/veggie topping for his supper meal.  That said he gets 7 measured cups a day.  So right now I am feeding him meat and rice.... giving him 2 cups 3 times a day, the idea is to give him enough food but not too much at one time. But at that...that is 6 measured cups a day compared to the 7 during normal times.  Keeping in mind...this is a Great Dane and a growing Great Dane at that. I have had trouble keeping him from being too skinny.......as he is growing. He is still growing,,he is a little over a year old.  He is hungry..and I look at that as a good thing.  I have no clue how to compare and that is why I gave up on home cooking for him while he is growing.

I DO intend to give him one forumla for a while once we get over this...... just to see, who knows I might have to switch brands entirely. 

Bland........I thought bland was no seasoning, no fat,,,pretty much no taste.  Plain white yogurt would be bland...as would plain bread or a soda cracker or so....... right?

I'm jumping back in the middle here, but no I sure wouldn't add dairy because it can be counter-indicated in some things (like pancreatitis and a few other things). 

Bil-jac?  Man, Dyan -- that's NOT bland (it's the opposite - it's really rich in my experience).  And bread is a carb (as is a cracker) which is an entirely different part of the digestive system. 

And even with the rice - you want it completely ***over cooked*** -- completely blown out and cooked to absolute mush in order for it to be ultra digestible.

calliecritturs

I'm jumping back in the middle here, but no I sure wouldn't add dairy because it can be counter-indicated in some things (like pancreatitis and a few other things). 

Funny..... a client at work last week told me that every time her dog gets digestive upsets...she gives them a bunch of plain yogurt with natural honey, then gave me the website of where she gets the natural honey from. She said it stops her dog problems right away.    Of course I HATE HATE HATE honey and never buy it...but after reading the natural honey website...thought I might look for some eventually.

calliecritturs

Bil-jac?  Man, Dyan -- that's NOT bland (it's the opposite - it's really rich in my experience).  And bread is a carb (as is a cracker) which is an entirely different part of the digestive system

calliecritturs

And even with the rice - you want it completely ***over cooked*** -- completely blown out and cooked to absolute mush in order for it to be ultra digestible.

But...as time goes on today...Gibby is acting more and more like himself. Hardly slept much..... played more......we went for a long walk rather than the pee wee ones we have been doing.....and after he ate about 1 3/4/cups cooked beef/r this afternoon at 12:30, he is now sitting in front of his dad staring at him.....and "talking" to him as he does when it gets about 4 for suppertime.       He hasn't had a poop yet today....but with this rice and chicken or rice and cooked beef...there sure isn't much there to come back out.....but I hope when he does go its not watery. We'll see.

 He's getting a lot of different things, though. Wheat in the bread, milk in the yogurt, possibly eggs in the bread, rice, chicken, AND beef. From the owner of a dog who is allergic to wheat, eggs, rice, and milk, that is a LOT of ingredients that could be upsetting him. It's not really a super bland diet. I'd just give him chicken and rice, or beef and rice, or potato and meat, til his tummy got better.

Yep, pasty rice and a bland protein source like chicken.  No dairy, no bread.  Poor Aesop, when he had a nasty bout of the poos a bit back, doesn't like rice so we ended up feeding oatmeal (overcooked to a gross pasty form as well) and chicken, which seems icky to me, but he thought it was fantastic.  

For this poo issue, I'd also think about dropping off a stool sample if you haven't already, just in case a bacteria is causing that particular issue.

 I'd also cut out the yogurt (even small licks) while he's having this particular problem.

   Dyan; try adding calcium to his cooked food. It should firm up his stool. Someone posted on K9 Kitchen and was cooking chicken and rice for their dog because it was having the same problem as Gibby but the dog's stools were very soft. She told them to add calcium. For every three and a half ounces of chicken or beef, add 250 milligrams of calcium. You may need a food scale to weigh the meat, and you need to weigh it after cooking before you mix it with the rice. You can get NOW brand calcium carbonate at any health food store; one teaspoon is 1200 milligrams of calcium. Until you add calcium his stool will probably be soft, at least part of the time.

  I looked at the bil-jac frozen online, and it's 18% protein and 8% fat, so it has much less fat than bil-jac dry and less than many other dry foods. Maybe that's why Gibby did well on it.

Dyan, when Willow has stomach issues--which is pretty often--I give her a Pepcid--I just pill her, no cheese, no bread, nothing with it.  Then I let her have bland boiled turkey breast or baby food turkey or whatever bland meat.  I do not ever give her rice.  It makes her worse on both ends. 

I will give her very small amounts of bland meat for a day or so, then add in her regular food, but very small meals at first. 

I think besides the bland, you are just feeding him way too much for an upset tummy.  Think of it in turns of when we are sick, yeah, we need to eat bland, but usually we are just picking on saltines or whatever, right?  I've applied the same concept to her.

And, I've found that with this little routine I have it works out well.  It really doesn't matter if he doesn't eat enough for one or two days.  I mean as soon as he's feeling better he's going to put the weight right back. 

Hope he's feeling better soon!

Guess I will need to figure out what he can have for a treat when he goes outside and expects a "goodboy" when he comes in.  I always gave him a dog bisquit.  I bet the amount of bread he ate since he has been sick for the past couple of days equal 1 slice. 

Funny you should mention calcium Janice....I just gave him a Tums to add calcium in his diet.  

I DO intend to take a stool sample in to work with me next week......

Use a high value toy as his treat instead of a food item. 

or, if he's not into toy rewards, just skip the treat for a few days. 

Dyan, what I do for treats when she's not well is get one of those extra small Gladware containers and just take a piece of a turkey breast or whatever meat she's eating as her food for the moment and shred it up or cut it up into pieces and give her a few of those as her treat. 

I've also frozen baby food meat in ice cube trays and tried that but she didn't really like them.  But, Gibby might. 

You may want to treat this an an elimination diet and feed him something he has not had before---I would probably not feed chicken/rice, but hamburger (fat drained) and potato or oatmeal (if he has not had that) and no extras----that includes treats----if you must treat, then feed bits of hamburger or whatever meat you are feeding for the "bland" diet.  If you are unsure of the amounts to feed, ask your vet, they should have a good idea of portions.  I would feed this for at least a week, maybe more to stabilize his gut, then slowly add the kibble back into his diet plan, along with a good probiotic/prebiotic to populate the friendly flora in his G-I tract.

For what it's worth, my G-I challenged guy does his very best on a red meat based diet (beef, bison, lamb, venison). 

tzu_mom

For what it's worth, my G-I challenged guy does his very best on a red meat based diet (beef, bison, lamb, venison). 

That's not at all uncommon -- and your suggestions are very sensible.   If anyoe wants to consider what Chinese medicine (TCVM) says -- it **always** considers chicken an inflammatory meat -- my guys don't get it at all.  They aren't 'allergic' but if there is inflammation hiding anywhere chicken will bring it out.