I have a 2 year old Lab/Newfie named Savannah that I am trying to switch over to an all-natural diet based on Kymythy Schultze's book. Savannah had Parvo when she was 3 months old, but seems to have a very sensitive stomach ever since then. Even the slightest change in food causes her to have a bad case of the runs. I've started by slowly mixing half ground beef with her usual dry food and was doing o.k., but had another episode of the runs again just yesterday. Is there some additive I can use to help with this problem? Will ground carrots help thicken the stool? Does anyone have similar parvo-puppy problems? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Well the good news is you should never have to vaccinate your dog for parvo ever again. She should have life long immunity to it!

I would try adding some aciphilophodus to her meal. I get this from live bacteria yogurt but you can also get it in a capsule form. As well, slippery elm can help with the runs. You could add this to the diet as well.

Do you have access to raw green tripe? This could be a good choice in a protein source to switch to initially.

Dr. Billinghust in his new book suggests this formula to add to your dogs fluid until the bowels settle down.

One cup black tea
one cup of water taken off some rice you have boiled.(it is full of a type of starch that puts a lining on the intestines.)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp. of common salt

He also says that some dogs intestines are not able to cope with the mixture of raw and kibble. You might be better off....fasting your dog for 1 1/2 - 2 days and then gradually feeding it a raw diet. Feeding plain yogurt during those fast days is beneificial. He then suggests you just feed a very plain patty of raw meaty bones or the whole raw meaty bones themselves (I would likely feed tripe myself). He says once you have good stools to gradually start adding other ingredients.

Shandar,

Are you sure? When I had mine tested they weren't immune.

hi been through this (the runs) feed him gerber baby food rice w/ hot water and green tripe the best site i've found to buy it is
greentripe.com. it comes ground and my dog loves it

In every seminar I have been to (and it is many!) the vets have always said that if your dog has parvo and lives through it they are immune for life.

My last dog was not vaccinated for parvo, has never had it and has a titer to it (same with distemper.

I would have to agree with Shandar. The vet has told me that Savannah can never contract Parvo again. We just took the long - (week in the hospital and $2000 in vet bills later) - way of getting to immunity from Parvo. I'd suggest the shots next time....definitely.

Unfortunately the vaccines don't always work either and in some cases actually give your dog the virus.

I gave 2 vaccines of parvo to one of my dogs and approx. 6 wks. after the last one (she was then 4 months old ) decided to do a titer to see where the immunity was at. It came back at 0. (they say it should be around 40). I was quite surprised and so was my vet. I then waited another 6 wks. and decided to give another vaccine of it (this is when I was much stupider and ignorant about vaccines...none the less I did learn). I decided to not do another titer as I was not going to give another vaccine if it still came back low. (titers can be expensive!) My vet suspected the vaccine and talked to the vaccine company about it. At this point, they too wanted to know what another titer would tell me.

In the end, the vaccine company and veternarian wanted to know what the result would be that they paid for the next titer. This time it came back at 14...still way below where it should have been.

(all the vaccines given were mod/live..which is actually 'supposed' to give better coverage).