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May 23, 2011

My dog has had diarrhea for 3 months. What can I do?

Full Question:
You've become my last resort, and I really hope you can help. My dog has been having diarrhea on/off for the past three months. This last month has definitely been the worse because it involved blood in his stools. I originally bought this German Shepherd when he was only 8 weeks old from a local breeder here who's dogs have had a great background. When I first took him home, he was doing great and his poop was a perfect log. At that time he was on Nutro-Max dry food, but a few weeks later his poop started getting a bit loose. He had a the pudding style diarrhea. I at first consulted the vet and she said it's nothing and it will go away. Well after a while, it didn't go away, I took the dog back to the vet and we did some fecals and it showed to be nothing in there, but a little bit of bacteria. They gave some antibiotics to help, which ended up not helping very much with his condition. They also told me to give him a science diet, which I did and it helped with his feces. The only problem was that from the ingredients that it had, it looked like junk food, and he smelled horrible, so I pulled him off of it and went back to normal dry food. I researched a bit on all natural dry foods, and finally came upon Solid Gold, which seemed to have a good reputation, and I gradually over a few days switched him over to the Solid Gold. He seemed to be doing decent with the Solid Gold at first, but soon enough the diarrhea ended up coming back. So again, we went back to the vet, and they said it's nothing, the fecals don't show anything. They wanted to put him on a science diet again, but I told them no. I went ahead on your web site. and researched about RAW food, and saw that this might be the thing I'm looking for. With the help of some of your board members, I picked up some raw food and gave to Caesar, along with his dry Solid Gold food. I would give Solid Gold in the morning, and the RAW at night. He seemed to be doing great on that at first. But soon enough, the diarrhea came back, but only with the Solid Gold because he would poop diarrhea in the afternoon when he ate dry in the morning. I let this go, I tried giving him pumpkin, yogurt, and other things to sooth his stomach, but they didn't work. After a few weeks, the diarrhea happened all the time, with the RAW or with the dry food. This was when everything got worse, his diarrhea became liquid, and he would sometimes poop out just plain water. I kept trying the homemade methods again because my vets weren't doing too well last time I saw them. This didn't work, and finally just a week and a half ago, when I switched him completely to RAW, he had blood in his stool. It was almost completely watery, with blood coming out. This scared me, so I took him to a new vet, which all the K-9 police departments go and see, so I figured this one might do the job. The vet took some blood work and X-rays, and told me that the blood work came out normal, and in his x-rays he had a lot of bones in his stomach, but when I saw the pictures, they were very small bones. In my opinion, it was just the bones from last night's chicken breast that were being digested. The vet highly recommended against RAW food and bones, and told me that I need to go to Hills or Iambs, which told me that this vet wasn't very good at all. What also threw me off about the vet was that when her technician was telling me how Caesar might have pancreatis based on his blood work, but the doctor later told me that this was wrong, and she shouldn't of said anything about it because the blood showed it to be normal.

It's been three months since the diarrhea started, and I'm out of things to try. I've tried 4 vets up to this point, and can't seem to find a decent one here. I've tried different methods of diets, and none seem to work. I know my biggest mistake was to switch his food so many times, but at the moment I'm afraid to switch him at all because it'll probably make it worse. Right now I'm cooking him some rice with some cooked ground beef, and putting a bit of Dr. Harvey's vegetable mix in there to help give him a bit more fiber. I also have gotten some green tripe that will hopefully help him as well. The rice and meatballs don't seem to be working however, because this morning he pooped what looked almost like tar. It was very black, and very elastic. I'm thinking it's the blood mucus coming out, now I don't know if it'll just take a few days to flush the blood out, or he's just not going to get any better. This is draining me and my dog out. My dog is already very slim and skinny just by nature, but this diarrhea is also draining him heavily. He's become a lot skinnier, and even though he has great energy, the energy dies very quickly. It pains to see him like that, and I feel like this is my fault because I don't know enough about RAW to have switched him over to it because he doesn't seem to be getting the nutrients he needs, or maybe it's just the diarrhea affecting him like that. Either way, I'm very much considering switching to THK because that's an already balanced food, and just adding a bit of meat on his food daily. My dog, Caesar, is 5 months old right now, and as I said I've ran out of solutions. I've tried anything from different vets, to online solutions, to all-natural dog stores suggestions, to the board members suggestions on your web site., to even some of the articles you've written on your web site., but I'm left clueless as to where to go from here. I'm sorry this took so long to explain, but if you have any suggestions as to what to do or what it could possibly be, I'd really appreciate it. I'm sure in all the years you've experienced, you must have gone through something similar. Again, I appreciate your time in reading this, and I really do hope you can help me in some sort of way. Thanks again for all the help you've already given me on your web site. and on your videos.

Sincerely,
Ali
Cindy
Cindy Cindy's Answer:
First of all I want to say I am NOT a health care professional, and I hesitate to give any type of medical advice through an email.

One thing that jumps out at me is that you have switched food a LOT, and not stuck with one thing long enough to let the pup get adjusted. You are setting him up to continue with the digestive upsets. I never recommend kibble and raw fed together, especially in a dog that has this kind of history.

I tell people who are switching to a raw diet to use ONE ingredient until their puppy or dog is having normal stools and then wait 4 or 5 days and add one more ingredient, etc… I don't use veggies for my own dogs at all, but if I did they would be the LAST thing I added to the diet, weeks or even months after I had the dog doing well.

You should read the article we have on feeding a raw diet. It's a work in progress but there is a lot of good information there.

I would also recommend these books, Natural Nutrition for Dogs & Cats and Raw Dog Food.

You can also go to our Feeding Dogs Page for a list of articles and books that will be helpful to you.

I would do a google search and find a HOLISTIC or HOMEOPATHIC vet that advocates a raw diet. A traditional allopathic vet is not the way to go with a puppy like this, they will merely prescribe meds and prescription diets to control the diarrhea, and not allow the body to heal.

I would also NOT vaccinate this puppy again, his immune system is taking enough of a hit from all the diarrhea and diet switching.

For information on vaccinations and the problems they cause please read our vaccinosis article.

I would also recommend these 2 books, Shock to the System and Vaccine Guide for Dogs & Cats.

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Expert Dog Trainer Cindy Rhodes
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