Don't know if you'll see this since it's been a couple of days, but in case you do! Kasey had a lot of the same symptoms and problems for his first year of life - tried every high quality kibble there was and terrible gas and pudding poops would result with each one. We switched to raw after finding this website and learning how and it resolved within a few days. But he will still occassionally have it happen for a day or two anyway. I love my vet and she says that some dogs just seem to have very sensitive systems that can get messed up for no obvious reason.

I definitely suspected giardia several times, and we've done the Elisa test several times, which is a lot more sensitive at detecting it, but it was always negative - although with a rescue, my vet suspects that first thing out of the gate. Lots of bone in the form of chicken backs is what keeps Kasey in good condition poop-wise. But if he gets stuck and has the loose stools for more than 4 or 5 days, she puts him on 7 days of Flagyl and it goes right back to normal within a day or two. She said Flagyl just seems to be healing to a dog's gut - it only happens once a year or so now.

Let us know if the flagyl is helping - I'm curious to know!

Sorry for lack of updates, he had to fast for 24 hours on Friday and then I had to wait for him to poop to give a progress update.

I have to admit I was getting as fed up as poor Sandy was, so I took a leap of faith and after the last 24 hour fast I started feeding him grain free kibble and miraculously his poop has been normal ever since. I also started him on the Flagyl, probiotics and Drontal on his second meal so that may be part of the solution too but it does make me wonder if it was not just his diet all along.

I felt the rice diet was making him worse. It's supposed to be bland and easy for the gut but it had the opposite effect on Sandy. He got some of our other dogs lamb and rice kibble yesterday, 1 kibble, and he had bad gas from that and today he is scratching like he has fleas - he hasn't had any bad gas since being on the grain free stuff and his scratching went away too.

I will experiment in a few weeks and see what his tolerance is like for corn, he was getting fed a corn based diet at the rescue and I don't think they had any issues with diarrhea with him. Not that I intend on switching him to Alpo or Dog Chow, I just would like to know what his tolerance is for when people want to give him treats or whatever.

So my new boy is a meat and potato guy I guess It will make finding economical kibble a challenge but it's better than him being on meds or whatever. It's making me think about home made food for him too.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread while I was dealing with this frustrating situation, it was really great having someplace to go to with my concerns.

Of course I can be wrong about this, but I want to say that rice is one of the least likely (by far) grains to trigger food allergies. Without going into a big explanation of how proteins are tied to true food allergies, it probably suffices to say that it's the gluten grains that are by far the more likely culprits.

Still, nothing is 100%! And it cannot hurt to stop grains! (I wouldn't even consider a corn challenge; corn and wheat are both way up on the trigger list. There are many many corn-free and wheat-free commercial treats, including at LB.)

I think you were/are probably seeing giardia. Flagyl is fast-working (which of course doesn't mean to stop mid-protocol). In addition, with a food allergy, in order to get all of the problem food completely out of the system takes much longer than 48 hours.

Still, you are right there, and I'm always in favor of giving hunches serious consideration, so you are probably doing the right things. And of course, something in that kibble may indeed be triggering an allergy.

All in all, great news! :-)

I just remembered he was not itchy until yesterday. So rice did not make him itch, but the new kibble did?

True allergies in dogs manifest at least partly (and sometimes almost entirely) in itch. Dogs' histamine receptors are mostly in the skin, where ours are mostly in our mucus membranes.

This would pretty much remove rice from the suspect list.

Still .... whatever works! I'm very happy for Sandy and you! Good for you for really hanging in there.

He is fortunate to have found you.

The grain free food did not make him itch but just having 1 piece of lamb and rice kibble did as well as having bad gas temporarily.

I am the fortunate one, he is a lovely boy.

This all reminds me that I forgot to say that a little diary (just a simple log) is really helpful when a pruritis or gas or diarrhea trigger is unidentified.

But this "I am almost hoping this is going to be parasites and easily fixed" may indeed be the ultimate result.