[BaileyzMom]

Bailey started having loose stools about 3 weeks ago. First morning would look great, then as the day went on, it would get loose. We took in a stool sample and they sent it to the lab and it came back positive for Giardia. She was treated with a 5 day course of medicine and stools started firming back up. After about a week they were back to soft. We took in another stool sample and they sent it out again figuring it was still Giardia since puppies can be tough to treat, but surprisingly it came back negative. They gave us (well we paid big bucks for) a digestive supplement to stabilize her, but it has done nothing and basically her stool is liquid. She only goes when we take her out anyway, she is not having any accidents or urgency, but it's definitely not good. I have placed a call to the vet to see if there is something I can give her. She is on a probiotic made by GNC that we got from Petsmart and put her on when she was on antibiotic for the UTI. She has been off the antibiotics for over 3 weeks now. She eats Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul Large Breed Puppy and has done well with it until 3 weeks ago. She's been eating it since she was 8 weeks old and is now almost 21 weeks. She did just start a new bag of it about 3 weeks ago.

Any experiences/ideas/suggestions??

 

[nala-goldengirl]

I would try chicken and rice for a few days to see if things firm up. It seems strange that it started around when you started a new bag of food.

 

[G-bear]

You might want to add a small amount of canned pumpkin (just pumpkin--don't buy pumpkin pie filling) to her food. A couple of tablespoons each time you feed her. It should help firm up her stools.
If it continues after trying chicken and rice and the pumpkin I would take her in to see the vet again. Sometimes Giardia can be tough to knock out.

 

[BaileyzMom]

Update... I had a nice long conversation with her vet by phone yesterday evening. He decided to treat her with a 10 day course of Metronidazole (sorry I didn't mention then name of it yesterday) just to help if there was some other parasite going on that didn't come up on the test. We also talked about her food. She came home from the breeder on Purina Pro Plan Large Breed Puppy but we changed over to Chicken Soup LBP at around 8 weeks (slowly with no problems). I have nothing against the Purina, but Chicken Soup is a little better quality ingredient list but still affordable. The vet thinks that she may have a sensitivity to chicken and/or beef and recommended we switch to a lamb and rice formula. Well, by last night she was having pure liquid explosive stools (sorry for the graphic description) and got me up last night around 2 am. I still had an unopened bag of the Purina Pro Plan LPB so I figured what the heck, I know you should change very gradually, but her stool couldn't get any worse. I checked with owners of her siblings, they are all still on the Purina with no problems and none of them have any sensitivities. So I gave it to her for breakfast, but just half her normal amount, then a regular dinner. We started the new course of Metro at lunch today. NO MORE LOOSE STOOLS so far, in fact, a little while ago her stool was near perfect.

So I'm thinking there was just something in the Chicken Soup that was not agreeing with her and worsening over time. Let's hope that is all it is! I will feed her whatever works for her that I can afford, and around here, the Chicken Soup and Pro Plan are about the same price, the advantage is every pet store in town carries the Pro Plan

Thank you for the responses, I do know about the pumpkin as well. Great suggestion!

I will update this in a few days so if someone is looking and does a search down the road they will see the outcome.