Last hope for runny poop and GAS!

Can a dog have giardia for a year without having more serious dehydration issues? I had it once and without being too graphic, remember not being able to leave the house because of the freequency of the "problem" I think Giardia produces not loose or cow patty poop but largely water- Zuma's poop is not mostly water- just as you described stinky and cow pie'ish but regular- twice a day.

ORIGINAL: Zoe and Zuma

I would tend to agree with your hunch on Giardia and the output.  When I got mine tested for it (and I had to take in the ultra-stinky and mushy sample for testing) we had only had our dog for a couple of weeks at the most.  We couldn't even rule out the new home nervousness as contributory on the poops.  The fact that Zuma's is regular but unformed makes me think Giardia is unlikely.  That and the fact that her weight is in the healthy range.

I just wanted to pop in to say that I agree with sooner. 24 hour fast followed by cooked meat and rice only for a couple weeks, then add in foods one at a time to see what the culprit is. When you start the meat and rice, feed her 6 small meals a day at first and graduate up to 2 large meals over a few days so as not to overtax her digestion system.

Poor stinky sweetie [&o]

I can't do 6 (work 8-5) but will make an effort to try 3.

I was also thinking check for Giardia and cocidia. Especially if it smells really bad, sometimes these other parasites are not as easy to find. 

My first thought was giardia, as well.  Please remember that giardia is extremely hard to detect in a stool sample--it's also hard to detect in advanced lab tests.  Please read this thread:
[linkhttp://forum.dog.com/asp/tm.asp?m=400358&mpage=1&key=giardia񡰜]http://forum.dog.com/asp/tm.asp?m=400358&mpage=1&key=giardia񡰜[/link]
 
And here is a great article:
[linkhttp://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/giardia_protozoa_diarrhea_vomiting_weight-loss..htm]http://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/giardia_protozoa_diarrhea_vomiting_weight-loss..htm[/link]

ORIGINAL: Zoe and Zuma  She gets raw carrots and apples for treats- sometimes bananas- should I cut this out too?

 
Yes, no more treats, zilch until you get this situation corrected.  As I suspected when reading through this, your dogs are probably perfectly normal, except (no offense) for their diet.  For now, please stop any and all fruit and vegetables.  Forget about all this stuff you have read and start from square one again and keep it simple. 
 
First, you must understand you need food that is going to move though the process slowly.  Any inappropriate ingredients entering into a dogs body is automatically attempted by the body to rush it through the digestive process, this includes fruits and vegetables.  You have to feed a diet meat based ration to correct the problem, with no inappropriate treats.
 
This is where I lose a lot of people and probably you, but take a good hard look at your dogs and ask yourself this:  Are these dogs really like me, an omnivore eating all similar foods as I, or are they carnivorous animals intended to eat like a carnivore should, meat based protein rations as a staple?  I think when you cross that plateau, your dogs will begin get back on the road to recovery.
 
You can do a lot better for your dogs than what you find in the stores from a commercial standpoint.  But, on the other hand they can best serve someone like you because they compensate in their weakness with necessary amount of fiber to slow down the system and create a firm stool.  You don't have to do anything it all, just provide the food and water.  For right now I think the best thing you can do is pick a name brand food and stick with it for a good length of time, minimum 4-6 months, with no mixing or changing brands.... get some stability. No fruits and vegetables, not even in treat form.  Buy a box of dog biscuits if you must.  Pan fry bacon and crumple it and give that as a treat.
 
Getting your animals back on track is the right thing to do.  It is not fair to them not to feel wanted (like for the walks and such) or not a joy to be with when the fix is simple, feed accordingly and feed appropriately.   That is a contradiction in terms for near impossible from a commercial standpoint.  Your best option then for your situation is the name-brand food and stay there.  Many people#%92s dogs have lead reasonably decent healthy lives (plus a leasure to be around) with Purina Feeds.  No, I don't feed them now but have in the past.  I would get regular Pro Plan (not the Selects) or something like Purina One.  I also think I saw something which might be Purina called Maximum Nutrition in Wal-Mart?  Avoid Beniful, they advertise a lot of veggies...stick with the upper end of the Purina line.  Point is though, pick something and just stay there, get the stability of a regular diet back with no changes.  When you get them back to normal, then if you want to give them a piece of banana or slice of apple it is not going to be a big issue.  Get them back to normal then work on moving onto the better quality feed than Purina.  Give them the 4-6 months of stability.  You should start to see improvements with poops within a week assuming get something, stick with it and no treats.
 
Charlie

My 1 year old Shih tzu had giradia when we got her and it proved very difficult to get rid of, in fact we almost lost her to it, in part because it can be so hard to detect and then she had a bed reaction to one of the meds the vet gave her. You may want to go ahead and have your pupi tested just to be on the safe side and maybe re tested down the road if things don't get better through diet changes. Good luck, I hope things get better!

Holly had the stinky poop problem, too. When it wasn't cow-pattyish, it still reeked. And the gas- whew! She smelled exactly like (not merely as bad as) skunk. Poor baby wasn't winning any popularity contests at that point!
 
Turned out to be two separate problems. The stinky-cowpatty was a bacterial infection, easily curable with antibiotics (different test than for parasites-request a 'gram stain' at the vet). The gas turned out to be a grain problem: she can't handle rice! Don't know whether it's Celiac or just an allergy, but the problem was- er- eliminated when we switched her onto Natural Balance Fish and Sweet Potato.
 Bonus- both my dogs love [sm=floating.gif] the stuff!
 
 

Zuma's update.  We have been feeding only rice and hamburger for two weeks now (following advice on this thread)  Zuma's runs and gas cleared up within two days.  I gave her a couple of baby carrots one day and a piece of apple one day- still good. One day last week, my son put about 5 small pieces of California Nautural sweet potato and fish- the gas was back and so was the runs.  Back to rice and ground beef only- firm and no gas.  Last night we added about 10 bites of Natures Balance allergy formula (Duck and potato) because it has the single source of protien and single source of carbs- by this morning the runs were back.  She seems to also be tolerating some pig chews too. This morning we went back to just rice and beef, and tonight, I am thinking about testing the Natures Balance again- just to see.  I am thinking gluten sensitive at  this point and am ruling out giardia and bacterial infection because we saw a dramatic improvement with the rice and hamburger.

Check around with local vets to see if they carry IVD Simple Formulas. They're a prescription diet, and very, very simple. That may work for her. I'd try a spoonful of canned food, and move her to straight canned (which will be ridiculously expensive, it's spendy food) before introducing kibble. Kibble is hard to digest. Try soaking it to soften it, before you introduce it. That may help. I know it isn't economical to feed a Labrador canned food, because it isn't economical to feed my under-20-lbs dogs canned. It's probably the only way you're going to make it back to regular food.

If that doesn't work, does anyone in your area carry premade raw?

And have you done any research on switching to a raw diet?  Its really not that hard to do, although it does take some preparation time.  I'm currently in the process and have seen drastic change in my dogs poop.  While neither one was cowpattyish, Crusher has had his fair share of digestive upsets.  We never went without a can of pumpkin in our cupboards in case he got into something he shouldnt have.  Currently they are eating kibble in the morning and raw at night.  

No, I have not looked into a raw diet yet because I am really hoping to find a kibble that will work-  I am feeding two labs (and 3 teenagers). Is it alot more expensive?  Being labs, they have never seen a food or object they would not eat so I am not so concerned with taste- (correctiuon- they didn't care much for raw broccoli that I dropped once []) What do you use to balance the diet?  Also, Jennie- Is IVD an abreviation for something?

I'm glad to hear you've got Zuma's tummy settled for now. Hopefully you can find something that works for her permanently.

I believe Jennie is referring to the limited ingredient diets here:http://www.royalcanin.us/vetdiet/vetdietcanineprod.html (Royal Canin purchased IVD).

I'll borrow a link from Janet Rose that really helped me get started.
http://forum.dog.com/asp/m.asp?m=305654

It is a bit more expensive if you don't have a good supplier.  But knowing that your dogs don't need fancy t-bones or boneless skinless chicken breasts bring down the cost.  Balancing out the ratios of RMB, muscle meat and organ meat is probably the most difficult part, but its far from impossible. 

My dogs both get primarily chicken backs and necks(which are cheap) as the RMB portion, beef liver for the organ meat, and ground beef for the muscle.  I will start adding in more variety if I ever switch to completley raw feeding.  I don't add any grains, because I don't feel that dogs need carbs.  This is contraversial, but since a dog can convert protein to energy, I don't see the need for carbs since it is only an energy source.  I also don't add veggies since I think that if so much has to be done to it for a dog to be able to digest it, then they don't really need that either.  Even just switching to half raw, the poops in the back yard have gotten smaller and turn chalky within a few days as proved by BF when its his turn to clean the backyard...[>:]

In any event, if you do the research it really isn't all that difficult to do.  It may cost more but with a dog like yours, it may save you a ton in vet bills.  At least look into it and see if its doable.

I am not sure about the benfits of raw- it seems like there would be a higher risk of parasites and bacteria. A former poster on this thread was also a proponent feeling it was more like a natural wild dogs diet and therefore would lead to better health and longevity.  This would really be hard to determine- my first impulse would be that wild dogs (if there are any left to study) would have shorter life spans due to poor health, malnutrition, parasites ect.- like ferrel cats- they have a MUCH shorter lifespan than a domesticated house cat and I ASSUME due in part to risk-factors related to diet.  I wonder what wolf  and coyote longevity looks like.  Maybe there would be some scientific paralells there.  This raw diet idea seems counter-intuitvie- but who knows? It seems like a pretty new idea so there probably isn't much info available in the way of long term health benifits or ramifications.