Giaridia and Diarrhea for 3 months

[DinoGina]

Greetings,

My five month old male has had giardia and very loose stools since he was eight weeks old. When I first took him to the vet he was diagnosed with isopura and giardia. It was treated with flagle and panacure. I have gone back to the vet 4 times and it has just amounted to more attempts to cure the giardia by alternating these medicines one for 11 days then the other for 7. One the last visit he was given an antibiotic and a giardia shot with the second shot in 4 weeks.

My other pup's stool is firm. All are of good weight, appear healthy, and very active.

We are very careful to pickup after them keep the back yard very clean.

Has anyone had this problem where the dog's stool eventually firms up?

Also I have tried Innova, Blue buffalo, eukanuba and most recently Costco puppy. I tried to check for ingredients and to see if an allergy could be the culprit. The higher end dry foods seem to aggrevate the situation. Someone suggested Eukanuba and this did not help either. The Costco seems to be the best so far as it not coming out like a water hose.
Someone else suggested Royal Canine.

Thanks and any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated

[bdragonladyt]

i am glad to see someone else with this problem. we have just finished with our last dose of flaygl. this is our 3rd atempt(2x with panacur) to get rid of it.we have 4 vets at our practice and love them all. the one we see the most actually called us and said she wanted to put our rotty(6 mos) on a higher dose. some stool nice and firm, some mush, some half and half. we were on blue buffalo(absolutly love it!), tried natural balance, with same results you descibed. because of a money situation we are now on harmony. we'll see how they do. i have read where a better quality food will cause loose stool. does anyone no if its common to take 3-4-5 times of treatment to finally get rid of this parasite? good luck with your puppy.

[tla0126]

Maybe try putting a teaspoon of canned pumpkin in their food (make sure it isn't the spiced kind). Our rescue had a bug of some sort with loose poop and I read the pumpkin advice on a post here. It worked GREAT! Good luck!

[DinoGina]

I am on my way to buy canned pumpkin! Thanks, we will try it.
I dont know how many times we will need to treat it to go away but I will take with the flagl and panacure as I dont know what it is doing to the pups kidneys ad liver etc. The worst of the situation is the watery stool.

Thanks for your replies

[lengel]

Is your pup still testing positive for giardia? I had this problem many years ago. Our vet told me that giardia isn't necessarily curable, gave us a prescription diet and we were able to manage the problem. I don't remember the details.

I would try talking to a holistic vet if yours doesn't have any new ideas.

[DinoGina]

Yes he is still testing positive for giardia but the vet says that the count has gone down.
I have traveled down this round several times during the last few months. The very loose stool just keeps coming back despite all of our efforts.
The antibiotics also helped against the bacteria overgrowth.

I will check for a holistic vet.

Thanks!

[sweetlee]

Guess I was lucky, the giardia went away after one course of flagyl.
The pumpkin didn't do much for us, just made orange loose poop instead of yellow.
Dodge was a bit older when I got him, but here is what has worked for us.
Canidae lamb and rice food. I feed twice a day, not sure when you are supposed to change from three times a day.
Also, in Dodges food I mix about 1/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal, per meal, mixed with water and I mix in a product called Dogzymes, just one scoop per meal. It's a blend of probiotics that comes in a white powder that mixes with water quite easily. Sometimes if we run out of oatmeal I will use bran flakes cereal, either kind of sucks up the moisture from the gut, and makes for firmer poop.
We now have actual turds that can be picked up, instead of having to hose the yard off.
I think mostly it is a matter of finding that one food that really agrees with the dog. I know how frustrating it can be, it took us a few months to get things figured out but since we have there have been no problems at all.

sharon

[Canula2000]

Giardia is a tough parasite to get rid of...and from what I know it actually stays with the dog its entire life but a healthy dog with good immune can keep it in check. I did one week panacur treatment, one week off and 5 days on again. My poor dog had giardia for 6 months before we knew what it was and got treatment. I also started him on probiotics to help his digestive system.

If your pup is still having diahrrea after several treatments I would look at other things that may be affecting your pup. I notice you have changed foods several times and this in itself will stress a dogs digestive system. Also a stressed dog has a harder time keeping giardia in check, so if you are over stressing the pup with other activities that might be another cause for the continued symptoms.

Good luck, if you search the internet for giardia you can find out good information.

[Nishasmom]

My dog was on Metronidizol (sp?) for her Giardia. She still gets diarrhea on "normal food" (EVO); but feeding her a bland diet really firms up her stool! After 1 wk. of antibiotic I resumed her normal diet....she had diarrhea again!! The vet told us to put her back on the bland diet (chicken and rice) for a few more weeks (until her insides have a chance to heal). So far so good; her poop is normal after just 2 days on the bland diet !

[bdragonladyt]

i do understand switching foods can cause upsets. i also have 2 JRT's and had them on the same food for almost 2 yrs. we got the rotty and used same brand. i noticed it had animal digest in it--what is animal digest!!!???--so thats why we switched to blue buffalo. we did do the transition slowly. poop was getting worse, so tried another brand. this was fron 1/14-3/28. sorry if thats to close. unfortunatly my husband lost his job and had to go to a cheaper dog food. i'm not happy with menu foods, but they have to eat. they're on harmony farms and so far so good. i did the pumpkin; helped for a while and all 3 dogs loved it. they'd look at there bowl and look at me if no pumpkin. they are so spoiled. some poop solid, some mush. maybe we'll try pumpkin again.

[Nishasmom]

If your dog has been sick (i.e. Giardia) she needs a bland diet (chicken and rice) to help her insides "heal". Once her tummy is stronger you can switch her back to her regular diet...slowly.

It is not a matter of simply "switching foods". Your dog is having diarrhea b/c her tummy cannot handle the richness of most dog foods. This is because of her illness (Giardia). Trust me...I just went through this...actually, I still am .

[bdragonladyt]

will do the bland diet again. i sure hope it works. thanks.

[sweetlee]

I would try the bland diet again. Boiled chicken mixed with rice, or pasta that is way overcooked and mushy, or oatmeal. Do this for at least three days, then very slowly begin mixing in kibble. I started with very little chicken, but used the broth to flavor the rice or oatmeal so the dog would like it. I have even used canned chicken noodle soup mixed with it at first.
Good luck, I hope your baby responds and is on the mend very soon.

Sharon

[baycaligirl1]

Thank goodness when our pup had Giarda it took only one consistent dose series of 7 days given it to him to get rid of it. I have heard stories that it takes some dogs many series of medicine to get rid of it but I guess we lucked out::))) About the loose stools...when Titan Giarda was gone he still had loose stools so we called our vet and they gave us some antibiotics for him to take to firm up his stools and within about a day of given it to him they firmed up. After that we swiched his food to raw and Taste of the wild(blue bag) and he rarely ever has loose stools anymore ...maybe once every month but it's never watery. Before this we had tried so many foods and his stools were always like water I used to have to hose it off cause it was impossible to pick it up. Hope I helped and take care!!!

[AngelBunny]

Originally Posted by bdragonladyt

...i noticed it had animal digest in it--what is animal digest!!!???...

According to What is This Ingredient? (In Plain English), animal digest is:

material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed.

According to The Dog Food Project, animal diget (listed on Ingredients to Avoid) is described by the above paragraph and a second one:

A cooked-down broth made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on.