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My puppy has been diagnosed with Irritable Bowl Disease

2K views 9 replies 8 participants last post by  katd 
#1 ·
My 4 month old Mister Goldberg was recently diagnosed with Irritable Bowl Disease, our vet says that Mister Goldberg is the youngest golden retriever he has diagnosed with this in his career.

Mister Goldberg has not had solid stool since we got him. We took him to the vet because he had lose stool. The vet put him Flagyl for a week. After he finished the Flagyl cycle he had diarrhea again.

The vet did more test and a slight case of Giardia turned up. The vet then put him on a double dose of Flagyl, the stool firmed up, when that round of Flagyl was over he started with the diarrhea again.

They vet did more testing to eliminate more exotic parasites as well as pancreatic problems. In the meantime they placed Mister Goldberg on another round of Flagyl and Tylosin Powder (to mix with his food).

Now his stool has somewhat firmed up but the G.I. series the vet ran would seem to indicate irritable bowl disease.

When we first got him the vet put him on Hills Science Diet Small Bites Puppy Food. Then the vet switched the food to prescription Hills Science Diet ID. Mister Goldberg has been on the Hills Science ID and has never had anything else since.

Right now we are going to finish the Flagyl and the Tylosin, when its finished we will see how his stool is. The vet says if the diarrhea presumes we would need to treat him Prednisone for the rest of his life in order to keep the inflation down.

I'm hoping someone in here had a similar issue or maybe has alternative solutions rather than keeping Mister Goldberg on medication for his entire life.
 

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#2 ·
I would get a second opinion. I think it is very likely the giardia is recurring, which is causing issues with his GI tract.

Search giardia in the forum and you will turn up a number of threads involving stubborn cases of giardia.

Do you have him on probiotics? Anytime they have been on antibiotics, they should be placed on probiotics, otherwise they are prone to diarrhea from the killing off of the good bacteria.
 
#5 ·
I agree sounds like Giardia. Giardia can affect a puppy for months even after it clears up. Also my dog had chronic diarrhea as a puppy and I kept him on probiotics for 3 months with the prescription food from Royal Canin for diarrhea. Also be careful what snacks u give him and absolutely no bully sticks, no rawhides which can give dogs diarrhea. Also it could be a food allergy. Usually as the puppy grows up he will outgrow the sensitive stomach issues. Sounds like u need a new vet.
 
#6 ·
I am sorry to read that you are having these digestive issues with your pup...he is so, so young.

I am attaching this article if it may be of interest or help to you:

Inflammatory Bowel Disease May Threaten Your Pet's Well-Being

If I were in your shoes, I would first determine that he is totally parasite free and move him to a home cooked diet as suggested in the article above. Since he is so young, you should also want to consider seeking out a integrative and/or holistic veterinarian who can help you establish a good meal plan for a growing pup. Most veterinarians get little education in vet school in diet or nutrition and most strongly promote Hill's/Science Diet as the only alternative, which it is not.

Wishing you the best of luck to get this resolved as soon as possible for little MG.
 
#7 ·
We had the same issue with Tanner. He came home at 14 weeks and at 15 weeks he began with diarrhea and it didn't stop for SO long. We did metronidazole and etc and he still had issues. We changed food and did a prescription food with Metamucil and that did help. We eventually slowly transitioned back to Merrick grain free puppy. He's now 10 months and we just switched him to adult food and fingers crossed...it has gone well! We ran so many tests and couldn't figure out what was wrong. It seems that time may have been all that we needed. He did have a random two days before switching to the adult food that he had a bad tummy. We gave two doses of Metro that we had and it stopped. I'd look for a second opinion just to be on the safe side.
 
#8 ·
So sorry you have this worry and I completely understand as Chester has had it since he was a puppy too. Personally I would hesitate at a lifetime of steroids, flagyl is usually the treatment here in Uk and it works very well for Chester. He's been on a single protein diet for a very long time, we used duck as it needed to be something his body wasn't used to and it worked great. We are now on raw food and he has been able to transition to other proteins too, it's such a relief. Green tripe is great for digestion and the gut if you can stomach the smell! We buy ours frozen and thaw it overnight, we give it several times a week and both my boys love it. We also stopped rice and wheat and gluten. That helped a lot too. We just use gluten free oats, oatmeal, or semolina.from being skinny, he's now a very big boy, 44kgs but no fat!
 
#9 ·
I very much agree with what you write.

IMHO dogs were never meant to eat kibble...( dry little processed nuggets, with no resemblance to real food)

Dogs also do not need grains, carbs, fillers etc.

I now have Brisby on a diet of 1/2 home cooked, half raw, have eliminated all processed food from her diet no grain, no cookies etc. and it has made a tremendous difference in the health issues she has.

Prior to making this change I had her on Orijen ($118.00 a bag here) with some home cooked meat and veggies added to the mix.

You will need to experiment with "real food" to see what works best for you.

YES, it is more work, but certainly worth it for the love of your dog IMHO.
 
#10 ·
My 4 month old Mister Goldberg was recently diagnosed with Irritable Bowl Disease, our vet says that Mister Goldberg is the youngest golden retriever he has diagnosed with this in his career.

Mister Goldberg has not had solid stool since we got him. We took him to the vet because he had lose stool. The vet put him Flagyl for a week. After he finished the Flagyl cycle he had diarrhea again.

The vet did more test and a slight case of Giardia turned up. The vet then put him on a double dose of Flagyl, the stool firmed up, when that round of Flagyl was over he started with the diarrhea again.

They vet did more testing to eliminate more exotic parasites as well as pancreatic problems. In the meantime they placed Mister Goldberg on another round of Flagyl and Tylosin Powder (to mix with his food).

Now his stool has somewhat firmed up but the G.I. series the vet ran would seem to indicate irritable bowl disease.

When we first got him the vet put him on Hills Science Diet Small Bites Puppy Food. Then the vet switched the food to prescription Hills Science Diet ID. Mister Goldberg has been on the Hills Science ID and has never had anything else since.

Right now we are going to finish the Flagyl and the Tylosin, when its finished we will see how his stool is. The vet says if the diarrhea presumes we would need to treat him Prednisone for the rest of his life in order to keep the inflation down.

I'm hoping someone in here had a similar issue or maybe has alternative solutions rather than keeping Mister Goldberg on medication for his entire life.
Put him slowly onto Lamb and rice it cures it
 
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