Time to change food?

    • Gold Top Dog

    Time to change food?

     This has been driving me crazy since I've been home.  The three paps my Dad has (Nard, Beau, and Rose) have the most sensitive stomachs I've ever seen.  This morning I woke up again to runny dog poo on the carpet.  *insert puke smilie*  

    None of them are sick very long- less than a day or so.  But each seems to get sick every week or two.  With 5 dogs that's a problem.  Its weird to me because Summer has an iron stomach and has only gotten sick twice since I've had her.  I've taken them in to the vet and they give me antibiotics and everything clears up fine.  I don't know if that says anything because if you leave them alone, it clears up too.  I just don't know what to do.  the vet does the same thing every time, and it's not working long term.  I thought maybe a food change?  All the paps are on EVO.  Maybe EVO is too much for those three?  Summer is doing great on EVO.  All their poos are kind of soft though, all the time.  If they don't have runs, they sometimes get poo stuck in their breeches because of how soft it is.  Another thought is maybe Josie and Emily are bringing some sort of illness back from school?  Josie is sick today too.

    Should I try a new food?  Is there something I can give them to firm up their poop?  

    I'm going to call the vet again and just ask them.  Usually they tell us to put them on ID and give them antibiotics, though.

    • Gold Top Dog

    all five of them at the same time? are they getting into some other "food" source?

    have they been tested for giardia?

    • Gold Top Dog
    No just three of them and they alternate. Right now Beau is sick and yesterday Rose was sick. Before that they were well for about a week. Trey and Summer never have problems. I don't know if they've been tested for Giardia lately.
    • Gold Top Dog

    Innova Puppy and Evo were too much for Kaiser.  He rarely had solid poo and I fed a lot of pumpkin to him in order to firm things up.

    I've found that he does much better if I feed him a food that has sweet potato, as SP is a great source of fiber (to add bulk to the stool).

    I switched both of the dogs and they now have much better/firmer/more consistent bowel movements.  I rotate between different brands such as Taste of the Wild, Natural Balance, California Natural, etc. -- my only "rule" is that I want it to have a good amount of sweet potato in the ingredients.  If I don't do this, it's back to feeding pumpkin.

    I fed Luke nothing but Evo for three years and he looked fantastic on it -- his stool was mostly fine but occasionally soft.  Kaiser just couldn't handle it at all.

    • Gold Top Dog

    I would switch - it's probably too rich for their tummies.

    • Gold Top Dog

    If they've handled Evo just fine before this, try a round of Safeguard.  It's a bit pricey for the all the dogs (sorry), but it will get any possible bugs with the exception of one tapeworm they most likely don't have (and wouldn't cause this symptom anyway).  this includes Giardia, which is showing some resistance to the go-to med the vets typically give instead.

    Safeguard is available over the counter.  Be sure to do all three days.  Then repeat in about seven days from the last treatment.  Finally, about a month from that treatment, repeat.  You won't have to do any other wormer other than HW during this time.  I don't recommend using Heartgard "plus" for instance.  Interceptor is fine.

    You do want to treat your dogs.  The bug takes a while to get established sometimes if it's a sneaky, drug resistant type, but eventually unfortunately you'll get some symptoms in one or both of your own dogs.

    I won't hurt, and it would definitely help, during the first round and second round, to do a period of bland food until the intestinal tract has a chance to fully repair.  A good human quality probiotic will help too - look for one in the refrigerated case of the health food store with a guaranteed CFU of acidophilus of one billion plus.

    After things settle down, you can explore the possibility that they just need a simpler food - the dairy in Evo can be a real irritant during times of GI stress. 

    Good luck!  Kind of a stinky time to, well, have stinky things happen. 

    • Gold Top Dog
    Thanks for all that info everyone. One question- is safeguard okay for hypothyroid dogs? We just got back that Trey does have hypothyroidism like we'd thought. He started his medicine for hypothyroidism yesterday. They did pick a real stinky time to get sick. Blegh.
    • Gold Top Dog

    Safeguard is one of the safest meds out there.  It's approved for pregnant females and puppies as young as, I think, two weeks old.  It's got no contraindications that I'm aware of.