My GSD, Apollo, was recently given a clean bill of health as detailed in the other thread I made. That was just over a couple of weeks ago.

Last week, he developed a very loose stool. He gets this occasionally. I'm not sure if it's because he ate a nice, juicy bug that he loves to chase, or there was some moldy tree bark on the stick he needed to rescue and bring home to the porch or what. It's rare, but happens once or twice a year maybe. I usually give him boiled ground turkey and white rice for a couple of days and all is right with the world.

This time was different. After he didn't improve for two days, I took him up to the vet on Saturday and brought a stool sample. They informed me he had blood and mucus in his stool. The blood was black, which is why I didn't recognize it in his stool.

First off, I had to see the vet I don't normally want to see, since it was the only appointment left for that day and they were closed on Sunday. She is 100% anti-raw diet. Blames it for everything, including rain storms at picnics and scary clowns. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say the lobby is full of 832 different kinds of Science Diet.

She suggested X-rays in case there was a foreign object obstructing his bowel to which I agreed. They also did a stools ample analysis. After finding nothing conclusive, she said it was more than likely something he ate due to his raw diet. She wanted him put on a commercial diet. In the mean time, she said to continue feeding the boiled ground turkey and white rice.

My question is, what could cause this? There is no chance he got into the garbage. After an incident with butcher's twine a few years back I'm paranoid about it and keep it in the laundry room up and out of reach. He's on leash 100% of the time and I never let him pause long enough to eat rabbit droppings or munch on plants. I soak and wash his food bowls every day, and wash the blanket he eats on once per week in the hot water cycle. He does take the chicken thighs out of his bowl and plops them on the blanket until he has eaten every thing else first.

His typical meal is yogurt, raw ground turkey, raw chicken thighs, raw chicken livers. I also rotate in canned mackeral, turkey necks, pumpkin puree, pork neck bones, cottage cheese, etc.

He also gets a vitamin E, a vitamin powder blend and salmon oil.

Prior to this problem he had his typical meal every day, plus a can of mackeral.

He's on 2 different antibiotics, a pill that firms up his stool and reduces his urge to defecate, and a pill that gets dissolved in water and squirted into his mouth to coat his stomach since he had some minor pain there. He's been on this since Saturday.

This morning he had a normal looking, healthy stool. I was quite relieved!

I would love to find out the cause of this problem since I have spent a large amount of money on him so far this year (all necessary stuff) and having to spend almost $300 on this really hurts, especially if there is something I could have done that would have prevented it.

Thanks for all the input, as usual!

There has recently been a huge recall of ground turkey. Raw ground meat is a huge source of E. Coli and salmonella, listeria and staph.
Consider changing your source of ground meat, or eliminating ground meat.
Black stool to me means bleeding in the GI tract high enough that some digestion has taken place. I'd be thinking parasites (which suck and secrete blood) or perhaps ulcer, foreign body or tumor. Tumors don't generally get better with medicine, they keep bleeding intermittently. Bacteria such as I mentioned above can cause black stool, but generally the dog is "sick", depressed, etc, it's not just the stool that is discolored.
Glad he's better.

Thanks so much Betty! I heard about the ground turkey recall on the news and made sure the stuff I buy wasn't included in it. I buy all mine from Costco.

If I were to eliminate ground meat, what would be an acceptable (and not terribly expensive) alternative? It's the main source of protein in his diet.

I don't feed him ground beef because his eye specialist thought that American beef might be a contributor to his genetic eye condition (pannus).

The vet did give him one kind of antibiotic that specifically targets parasites in the intestines if I recall correctly.

Yes, I would probably stop using ground meat as well. Not that it's necessarily the culprit, but it sure can pack a pathogen wallop these days .... to the tune of a hundred times what unground raw poultry would typically sport on its surface.

But I would also watch every stool for a while.

I'm not clear on the timing. It was two days ago, or a week ago, that he saw the vet and was switched to cooked?

How did you know about the pain? Palpation or the dog acting like he was in pain? I mean, did he act "sick," as Dr. Betty mentioned?

Also, how old is he? If he's not full-grown, a side issue is that you will want to get the cooked diet balanced with calcium fairly soon. If he is full-grown, it's less crucial, but since calcium is a stool-firmer there is no reason not to balance the cooked diet immediately when it's for a dog with diarrhea, IMHO.

Let me know if you want calcium supplementation info for this boneless cooked diet. Do you have eggshells?

 Quote: Lee_Reicheld

Thanks so much Betty! I heard about the ground turkey recall on the news and made sure the stuff I buy wasn't included in it. I buy all mine from Costco.

If I were to eliminate ground meat, what would be an acceptable (and not terribly expensive) alternative? It's the main source of protein in his diet.

Well, the raw chicken thighs are a significant protein source there. One thought, though, is those giant turkey breasts at Costco. But any unground meat is good. Also, the focus on the food dishes can be more effectively shifted to the surface of the poultry, IMHO. That is, rinsing the surface, while it doesn't kill anything, mechanically removes a load of the surface pathogens. I admit that I do not do this, but if I had a dog with this issue, I would. (Don't get me wrong about food-borne pathogens and dogs: they have great defenses against them. But ground poultry can now present a pathogen load unlike almost anything in nature, and when the dog is vulnerable, I'd rather eliminate a bunch of the surface critters as well. You can pour boiling water around and down the sink and drain after.)

Thanks Connie!

As for the timing, he got his first loose stool on Wednesday night. I started him on his favorite, boiled ground turkey and rice Thursday. By Friday night he hadn't improved at all, so Saturday morning we went to the vet.

The vet was palpating his belly and he made some not quite normal whines, so I assumed he was expressing pain. Not serious pain (no growling) but I thought it was an unusual whine.

He's 8.5 years old now. I'd love to hear about calcium supplements! I forgot to mention when listing his "menu" that I also give him 4-5 hard cooked eggs, with shells, per week. These are the organic brown eggs from Costco.

I fully intend to keep him on a raw diet once this thing passes, since he never really like any commercial food I had him on. He goes bonkers for the raw diet every single night though.

 Quote: Lee_Reicheld

If I don't feed him ground beef because his eye specialist thought that American beef might be a contributor to his genetic eye condition (pannus).

Did the vet give you any information as to the study(s) that made this determination. I would like to read it. If not, can you request further information from you vet on this subject for me. It would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Well, the raw chicken thighs are a significant protein source there. One thought, though, is those giant turkey breasts at Costco. But any unground meat is good. Also, the focus on the food dishes can be more effectively shifted to the surface of the poultry, IMHO. That is, rinsing the surface, while it doesn't kill anything, mechanically removes a load of the surface pathogens. I admit that I do not do this, but if I had a dog with this issue, I would, (Don't get me wrong about food-borne pathogens and dogs: they have great defenses against them. But ground poultry can now present a pathogen load unlike almost anything in nature, and when the dog is vulnerable, I'd rather eliminate a bunch of the surface critters as well. You can pour boiling water around and down the sink and drain after.)

Thanks Connie. I think the chicken breasts from Costco would be a bit too pricey, but I'll check today since I am going there. What about the boneless chicken thighs they have? Could I give him two thighs with bones and a couple without and have a good balance?

I haven't been rinsing the thighs either, but I will certainly start!

 Quote: Anne Jones

 Quote: Lee_Reicheld

If I don't feed him ground beef because his eye specialist thought that American beef might be a contributor to his genetic eye condition (pannus).

Did the vet give you any information as to the study(s) that made this determination. I would like to read it. If not, can you request further information from you vet on this subject for me. It would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi Ann! I would love to, but unfortunately he didn't supply me with any at the time. He was an incredibly smart, caring elderly man who passed away last year. I will mention it to his new eye doctor next time I go there, however he's not due for another checkup until next summer (he just had one last month).

 Quote: lee_reicheld

He's 8.5 years old now. I'd love to hear about calcium supplements! I forgot to mention when listing his "menu" that I also give him 4-5 hard cooked eggs, with shells, per week. These are the organic brown eggs from Costco.

I fully intend to keep him on a raw diet once this thing passes, since he never really like any commercial food I had him on. He goes bonkers for the raw diet every single night though.

That's a lot of extra calcium! He doesn't need the shells on all those eggs (or technically, on any of them, unless there is a load of boneless meat in the diet to cover).

So the usual diet may be supplying more calcium than he needs, while the current one supplies none (no big deal for a few days but again, calcium is a stool-firmer, so .....).

You can rinse the inside of an eggshell and leave it out overnight and grind it (them). One is about enough to cover two pounds of boneless food. That is, one-half of an eggshell, ground, will provide about 1/2 teaspoon, or enough for a pound of boneless food.

There's disagreement about whether un-ground shell is fully absorbed by all dogs, so to be sure, I do think you should grind them for a dog whose diet requires the calcium supplementation. (A cheapo coffee grinder works fine; so does a mortar/pestle.)