my pup has has soft stools here and there ever since i got him at 8weeks. he is now 4mo, and been on the same food since before i got him. at 8weeks the vet said he had coccidia, and we treated him it firmed the stool a little, but then back to square one. some stools are softer than others, rarely ever diarehha. but being worried about it, i ask the vet and she of course told me that it was the food, and that i needed to be on a science diet rx food. i ask a friend of mine (who's bred great danes for ever)and who is a vet tech. she told me it was probably girardia. i had the vet check a sample and they found it in there. they gave me an antibiotic for it and so far is working. i still ended up shouting at the vet because she insisted i take the food also. i wanted to wait and see if the pills worked first. so, first of all, what exactly is girardia? and secondly, was i right wanting to try one thing at a time?

Two Words.

1:Raw
2iet

Science Diet.... what a joke that food is. Have you ever read the ingredients on that food. Store Kibble is better then that crap. My vet tried that with me as well, told him to stick that Science Diet where the sun don't shine...need less to say don't see tha vet anymore.

Girardia is a parasite that lives in the intestines. Nasty.

First off...be sure to pick up, wash away and disenfect any areas where your pup goes potty at. Giardia is VERY contagious and humans can get it to.
One of my past rescues had it and from what I understand it is more or less the same thing that we get if going to a country (or where ever) w/ bad/contaminated water and drinking it. When your dog takes a dump outside, if it is not cleaned up, the giardia will stay there....next time it rains, it gets in the water in the yard...dog drinks water...cycle starts all over again and probably spreads to others.

Giardia can be quite nasty!

My guy developed bloody diarrhea from it. At the time I was seeing an allopathic vet and the dog was put on antibiotics and science diet. I have since switched vets.

My current vet (holistic) sells me liquid oxygen each spring which I add to the dog's drinking water on a daily basis. He is now on a partial raw diet (I feed kibble in AM for convenience). My dog has not had a bout of giardia since. It is present in the area because other dogs that I know have gotten it.

The vet explained that giardia is anaerobic and that the liquid oxygen in the drinking water kills the parasite.

Natalie

http://vegamalinois.tripod.com

While I am not against anyone trying to make a buck....
How exactly do you think this product is able to keep oxygen in a liquid form? I highly doubt that your vet has figured out a way to defy the laws of physics and allow for a liquid form of oxygen at normal temperature and pressure. If he is selling you dilute chlorine or bromine it would work in preventing the infection from drinking water.
he was however correct, oxygen will kill giardia.

Chad S.

Hyperoxygenated water would be H2O2, hydrogen peroxide. I doubt it would do much as a preventative or treatment for Giardia though. Out here the most common method of getting giardia is to drink untreated water from down stream from where sheep are grazing (why just sheep I have no idea why they carry it and not cattle). Those streams are well oxygenated. Here is a web site on the disease:

http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/consumer/giardia.htm

I remembered the vet calling it "liquid oxygen". I just did an Internet search and it appears that I remembered wrong and it's called "stabilized liquid oxygen".

Here are two sites regarding it.

http://www.kornax.com/Stabilized_Liquid_Oxygen_Water.htm

http://www.neveranoutbreak.com/html/oxygen.html

My vet has not made the claims about the oxygen being able to enter the bloodstream. He told me that it would kill the giardia parasites in the stomach. And, that I could use it to brush the dog's teeth by wetting a piece of gauze with it as it would kill plaque better than doggie toothpaste does.

I'm not a scientist but I do know that my dog has been giardia free since being on the product over the spring, summer and fall (winter is not as much of a concern because the ponds freeze over). I also personally know of two dogs who have contracted giardia that frequent areas that I also walk my dog in since he has been on the product. Not a scientific experiment...I know.

I trust this vet. At one point I spent hundreds of dollars trying to figure out what was wrong with my dog. The first vet told me that I was insane and that there was nothing wrong with him. The second vet diagnosed the symptoms of pulled groin muscles but not the underlying cause of those pulled groin muscles which was spondylosis caused from an extra vertebra. There is instability in the spine due to the extra vertebra being smaller in size than the other vertebrae. This vet looked at the original x-rays that the first two vets looked at because I refused to pay for more x-rays...the first two obviously don't know how to count! They also missed the lesions in the spine! I've seen the x-ray and even with an untrained eye, I could see the difference in size.

Natalie

http://vegamalinois.tripod.com

The flagyl should cure it. In my experience, coccidia and giardia can come together so I'm surprised the vet didn't do a second test. Auster had coccidia then giardia as a pup. Luckily we caught it early and it didn't do her any harm.

Natalie,
I don't know how thoroughly your read through those web sites, but both of them state that there "stabilized" oxygen is provided by sodium chlorate. Chlorate is capable of killing a broad spectrum of bacteria, it however does not do so by oxygenating your dogs GI tract. Studies have also been conducted by USDA scientists on the use of chlorate in drinking water to reduce the populations of the hemoragic E. coli strain (H0157) in cattle.
The other claims in these web sites scared the crap out of me. They actually stated that this product oxygenates the cells of your body. Whereas most people spend their time trying to figure out how to limit the detrimental effects of cellular oxidation.
As far as chlorate in drinking water being an effective means of controlling giardia, I don't know. It is also important to remember that these products are not regulated in any way, and therefore may not even contain the chlorate.

Chad, I'm not going to argue with you.

I don't believe most of the claims on those websites. I do know that my dog has been giardia free since being on the product and we frequent areas where it is present. We're being overrun with deer and beaver here so it is very difficult to avoid. I also know that the dog is not immune to Giardia because he's had it in the past. That's about all I can say.

Natalie