Brady has the runs...again - updated at bottom

It all started the day after New Years...My boyfriend took the day off of work (luck him) and he stayed home with Brady all day. He kept on pooping and throwing up. I was concerned so I took him to the vet when I got home from work. There was a chance that he had eaten part of a rock, so they did an x-ray just to make sure. They put him on special food to help his tummy and some meds to make things go along better. He's all done with that now, and he had gotten a little bit better with the poo, it was soft but kinda formed. All of this probably doesn't related to each other, but it's just odd...

Well, Friday morning when he pooed, I saw a piece of string in his poo (probably almost a food long) I was like wow, I'll really have to keep an eye on him with his rope toy. Well, I guess he went to that potty during lunch time and it was "nasty" and my boyfriend's brother said. Then, when I got home from work, I went by the front door to check and see if any packages have come by and I looked at the rug by the front door, and there was almost a whole row that had gone bald in it (it's like one of the cheep rugs that have the kinda rubber bottom, and it's like a burber or whatever you call it, you pull on a loose string and it just keeps going) I guess this is what he got into. I have no idea how much of it he ate. So I called my friend who's studding to be a vet. She wasn't sure how much he ate and if he'd be able to pass it or not so she said I should call my vet just to see. Well, that's what I did. She asked me all the normal questions, how's he eating, drinking, is he tired and so on. Everything seems to be normal with his attitude. She just told me to watch out for throw up. That if he throws up, I need to come in.

Well, anyway, Brady got up 4 times in the middle of the night crying to go out (I made my boyfriend do it, and then he stepped in it, so there were poop marks all over the place on the carpet in the morning that I had to clean) He didn't go again until about 3 today, and he's been going out a few times tonight. I'm not sure if I should skip his breakfast tomorrow to let everything work it's way out. I also have switched food too, so that could be part of it. I am not sure what to do! He is now eating wellness, he seems to like it, but he hasn't had a firm poo since i switched to it (i did do it over 2 weeks, but in the middle of it, i had to feed him the special food from the vet) I'm not sure if I should try something different, or give it a chance. Any advice would be great. also, i might be going over to my boyfriend parents house tomorrow night, they have two dogs, and i'm not sure if i should bring Brady. I know why he's not feeling well, so I'm not sure. it's up to them too.

sorry for the long post, and thank you for reading and listening to my story.

poor bradey and poor you. believe me i know what its like to wake up every morning to runny pooh! we discovered our problem was due to having changed his food after he was castrated, it went on for a good while till we realised he was intolerant to any poultry, we switched back to his lamb and now the only time he has a funny tum is if he has a new treat that doesnt agree with him so i try to stick to what i know he can take but its so difficult when i see so many different bits that he may like but at the end he suffers for it so its not faqir. anyway back to your point. i think you should maybe have starved him like you thought to make sure it had all worked its way through as your just mixing up more in his tum. im sure the vet should have told you this. this would settle his tum, only one day would be enough. as to the eating of the rug....keep an eye on it as i would be worried about it getting twisted inside but again im sure the vet would have talked to you about this too. as to taking him to your parents. i personally wouldnt if he is still under the weather uless there is no one to watch him at home. specially if you are trying to starve him as he may get hold of there dog food etc and and he may just like to be in his own bed etc. depends if he goes there alot anyway i suppose, home from home as it were. sorry i tend to ramble on. just hope he feels better soon and dont keep switching his food. it takes a while to settle them in to a new food and his tum is already delicate with all the wretching and the runs etc. xx to bradley :flwr: :flwr: :flwr:

I'd call the vets back again and tell them he was up 4 times in the night. That does not sound good as a consistent problem and diarrhea can very quickly dehydrate a dog to a dangerous level, especially a puppy.

Withhold all food for 24 hours as well -- just make sure he gets water. If he isn;t drinking, try giving him ice cubes to chew or lick. This is extremely important.

Then reintroduce just plain boiled rice and some boiled chicken, in small meals several times a day. If the runs continue for several days then you really want to get him checked again at the vet.

Did they do a fecal exam? Check for colitis, giardia, worms, etc? This should be the next line of approach.

If runs continue, try a food with an unusual protein source -- not chicken or beef, but lamb or fish or venison.

I wouldn't bring a sick dog to a home where other dogs might get what he has or where the dogs could stress him further at this time.

Let us know how he does.

PS get rid of the carpet he is chewing on and make sure he cannot access areas like that when you aren't there. Sounds like he needs to be confined when you are out, down to the kitchen perhaps, and also needs to be watched carefully when you are home. Now sure what his age is but any dog under 6-8 months shouldn't really be out of sight when in the house -- a year is a more reliable age at which they can have free rein, once you know they are well past the chewing stage and housetraining.

Yikes....sorry you are going through all of this. I'm with Karlin...call your vet and tell them about the rug. There's definitely something going on there.

I would definitely keep a close eye on him! And I'm with Karlin too....
I would put in a call to your vet ASAP.

I did tell the vet about the rug, and it's now in the trash (what a naughty little boy brady is)my boyfriends brother is staying with us, and he's home during the day, so i'm pretty sure that i was under his watch that this happened. when no one is home, brady stays in his crate. i have a feeling that it will probably be like that always. he doesn't have a problem with his crate, he kinda likes it, but he does tend to get into stuff. he's almost 9 months old now. i would rather him be safe when i'm not around, and the best way to do that is to lock him up in there.

he has been drinking water and he's still peeing. when i went to the vet they did test his poo (actually twice, one from earlier in the day, and one that he did outside at the vet in the middle of my exam. i was so proud him him because he started to cry to go outside when we were in the little room, he also cried in the middle of the night those few times too and choose no to poo on our bed)and they found nothing. they did blood tests and nothing, they also did an x- ray because i thought he might has eaten a rock.

but i think this time it's the rug. i'm not going to feed him breakfast (it's a little late now anyway, just woke up and it's 1 pm , on a good note, he made it most of the night, he needed to be let out at like 7ish but he was good until 1, he was let out too before we went to bed at 3am!)

anyway, i think i'm going to make some rice for him. he has never really had a problem with chicken before. i used to boil it and add it to his food to make it taste better for him and he ate it, and his old food was chicken based. i'm not sure what the problem is, but on a good note, his poo did start to kinda firm up last night. still soft, but not as bad.

thanks for the advice everyone! i have read about pumpkin puree, do you think that might help too?

hi! first of all....what a beautiful little boy brady is! i'm sorry to hear about your trouble.

i just wanted to say that i agree with everyone about keeping the vet posted, etc.... but i don't know how much the rug has to do with the fact that brady has runny pooh.

indy loves anything long like ropes from rope toys, string, and hairs.....this caused all sorts of painful problems for the poor guy when he was a little puppy and the hairs especially caused me to have to give much more assistance in his pooping than i could have ever prepared for... anyway, whenever indy passed anything like that it always came out in hard poohs, so i don't know if runs would indicate problems caused by the rug unless it just generally upset poor brady's stomach. anyone else had a similar experience?

good luck!!!

Wow, anything like string or yarn is extremely dangerous to a dog's digestive tract. I don't think it will show up on an x-ray, either.

So the vet does know that Brady pooped out a very long string? Make sure the vet knows about this. If Brady continues to be ill, you'll need to notify the vet.

I hope he feels better soon. :hug:

i fed him some rice and a tiny bit of canned food today. does rice come out the other end, kinda looking like little rice? i'm not sure if his poo should look like that. it seemed to have slowed things down because he went at 1pm and he just went now at 11pm. it was still on the soft side but it's not like he was going out at much to poo. just a little update. thanks

we're going to the vet later on today. this is just not clearing up for him. i will give an update when i find out what is wrong.

Please keep us informed---Aileen

Lauren, I've been offline for most of the last week and am just catching up ... hope Brady gets better soon. :flwr:

i went to the vet tonight. she didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong. there is no more string coming out in his poo, and things (like the rice) seem to be moving along fine now. she thinks that the food i switched to (wellness) was too rich for him. ever since i switched to it i haven't had a firm poop. he is now on W/D canned for a few days and some medicine that starts with "M" he was on that before and it did seem to help somewhat. i guess it's an antibiotic for the tummy or something. so now i have to try and figure out a new food for brady to eat. (the wellness gave him really bad gas too) she named a few different foods i could switch him too. on of them was royal canin, or solid gold. i have read that some of you feed that to your dogs. the other one that she recommended was science diet natural something or other. i am going to do some research online about these foods and see what one i feel comfortable feeding my brady. if any one has any ideas please let me know. for the moment brady is sleeping, he hasn't pooped since this morning but i didn't feed him his morning meal so i probably won't see anything until later one tonight.

Brady has the runs...again - updated at bottom

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Probably unintentional pun, but how appropriate... :lol:

Lauren....I switched Lily to RC from SD when she was about 2 months old. She went from pooing 5 or 6x a day to just 3. They are all firm. My Vet recommended SD (they sell it), but reading the ingredients, it has too much filler. I highly recommend RC. She loves it, and has less and firmer pooh's. I was undecided at the time to go with RC or Wellness, the deciding factor was the RC was easier to find for me than Wellness. I'm glad I decided on the RC. I have had excellent results with it.

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Brady has the runs...again - updated at bottom

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Probably unintentional pun, but how appropriate... Laughing

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Karlin, I didn't even notice that,

A little bit more of an update, he seems to be doing better, his poo has firmed up somewhat. he's online going in little bits, but it's probably because i skipped a meal yesterday. he seems to like the W/D the vet gave me for the time being.

I'm still not sure what to do about the next food I will put him on. If the wellness was too rich for him, wouldn't something that is close to that be a problem too. I was looking at California Natural, and it seems to be almost the same.

I swear, I care more about what I put in my furbaby's mouth than I do about mine![/quote]

Not to bash Wellness (I actually am considering it as one of my options - its a great choice) but I did read on a website reviewing dog foods, that some dogs have problems with looser stools on it. Nutro Ultra and Innova Evo had reviews at helping firm up stools when its a problem.