well, I've been helping my puppy battle diarhea on and off for 6 months now. I've stuck with CS puppy food and I have no clue as to what may the cause. some weeks he's good, then there ar etimes where his stool is runny. I've tried everything short of adding pumpkin to his food.

 Quote: Webboard User

well, I've been helping my puppy battle diarhea on and off for 6 months now. I've stuck with CS puppy food and I have no clue as to what may the cause. some weeks he's good, then there ar etimes where his stool is runny. I've tried everything short of adding pumpkin to his food.

What does the vet say? What did the fecal reveal?

I would definitely have a fecal done on the dog, if that is negative...go forward with a culture. I fought with on and off diarrhea with my lab when she was a pup, in and out of the vet for quite some time. Finally we ran a culture and she had salmonella. Or she may have some sort of intolerance to the type of food she is eating, even if it is a good food. For example, I fed Innova for quite some time to my GSD and lab, tried to feed my mal the puppy form when I got her, but it just did not agree.

back in november there were no worms and they switched him to Royal Canin. he didnt really care for the food. after he got better, I switched to CS. he was doing fine for a while. then he started up on and off. the vet of course suggests SD or Royal Canin.... otherwise he is very healthy and active.

my GSD dog has had a tablespoon of organic (vanilla) yoghurt with her normal breakfast feeding for the last 4 months and has not had a diarrhea bout since. she loves her yoghurt more than most any other food...will always eat that 1st.

 Quote: Caroline Mitchel

my GSD dog has had a tablespoon of organic (vanilla) yoghurt with her normal breakfast feeding for the last 4 months and has not had a diarrhea bout since. she loves her yoghurt more than most any other food...will always eat that 1st.

Vanilla yogurt (or at least 99% of them) is loaded with sugar.

You want to look for plain, no sugar, live (active) cultures.

 Quote: Webboard User

back in november there were no worms and they switched him to Royal Canin. he didnt really care for the food. after he got better, I switched to CS. he was doing fine for a while. then he started up on and off. the vet of course suggests SD or Royal Canin.... otherwise he is very healthy and active.

This is not OK, though, to have a 6-month problem.

This does not sound food-related to me, and I would be testing for parasites such as giardia, for EPI, for everything... 6 months is too long.

I think that the only thing that would convince me of a food trigger with that history (of sporadic diarrhea with more than one kind of food) would be a log showing that he had bouts of diarrhea after being given fatty table scraps, maybe, or getting into cat food, or trash-diving.

If the food triggers diarrhea, it doesn't do it off and on.

Do you like this vet, in general?

Hmmmmmmm, how is your pup's weight? Is he keeping and putting on weight or is he losing it??

This is a long shot and probably not what is going on, but my friend had a GSD that went for almost a YEAR of the runs and her dog was losing weight, getting aggressive (probably b/c it wasn't able to absorb any nutrients from it's food)...the vets thought it was Giardia and the dog was on flagyl 24/7 until she was finally diagnosed with PEI (Pancreatic Insufficiency): http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&articleid=331

My friend felt terrible b/c the solution was as simple as sprinkling this powder enzyme on her food. My friend also does not feed raw, but swears by canned food called Regal Sensibites in helping to "bind" loose stool.

Good luck with you pup. I hope you find the cause.

Connie, what about adding some Pedialyte to their water? This seems to help my dogs when the stresses of traveling to much catches up with them and they end up with diarhea.

Sandy

I would have added a bit of pumpkin by now as well as being more aggressive in trying to find the cause/s.

Has the vet done comprehensive fecal testing for not only worms but also gairdia, coccidia, salmonella, and spiroketes. My pup had all three and after a round of erythromyocin and a Sulpha drug (cant remember the name of it for the life of me, its yellow custard flavored liquid in premeasured oral syringes)

I also had him on mega doses of probiotics to balance all that nightmare out for about 4 weeks

A tablespoon of yogurt may not provide enough cultures to really make a huge difference, Mine get a little more than a TBL of plain Kefir at breakfast and sometimes dinner, as well as a probiotic supplement.

I use plain pedialyte as well, sometimes half and half with water

Also I assume CS stands for Chicken soup
It has turkey chicken duck and salmon , that is a lot of proteins which makes it hard to narrow down a possible problem and both Turkey and Duck can be very rich and hard to tolerate for some dogs.

If it were me I would either switch to Raw or go with something like Wellness fish and sweet potato or another simple but very high quality food.

A mild Grain intolerance is another thing that might be a possibility since it is with several different brands and comes and goes