gastro enteritis

ruby has had diarreah for a few days not vomiting except for once , and well in herself so i fed her a bland diet , made sure she was drinking lots and hoped it would resolve itself. she had a few too mant treats last weekend when my daughter was home and i assumed it was that. but last night she suddenly went very quiet, sat in her crate kind of hunched. very unlike her . then just before bed she passed ( on puppy pad as were snowed in !) a fairly large amount of bloody , jelly like substance:yikes .. she then went to sleep , seeming more comfortable . took her vet first thing and hes given her an anti biotic injection , and a painkilling one. he said its gastroenteritis. shes now alot brighter having slept all day .. ive just thought tho, the weekend before last , i opened and served her supper , of nature diet , which she had been having and liking a lot.. my daughter and hubby both remarked on the smell and said it was rank .. im veggie so all meat smells rank to me:yikes so i removed what she hadnt eaten , altho she wasnt too keen , and threw it out.. do you think this could have caused this bout of illness, 2 weeks after? ... she has been licking her lips a lot since she ate it...? or would it have been more severe soon after she ate it .. just wondering . im disappointed as nature diet seemed good .i rangthe store the day after, and he said its not an isolated incident and to bring it back andid get a refund ... no chance , it was frozen solid in deep snow by then .. wonder if they would refund the vets bill i got today

It does seem to take time for gastroentiritis to circulate through the body to the point where symptoms such as vomiting start appearing. And from my own experience it could have been the 'off' meat. My first Cavalier was a scavenger and on a long walk one day found and ate something definitely off and disgusting. He was fine for a week, ate a good supper, the next morning was slightly sick, and 24 hours later was dead. The vet said his body was full of poison and there was nothing they could have done, but he really did show no signs at all. He was 4.5 years old. It is a killer, and I'm so glad Ruby's attack seems to have been caught in time - best wishes for a full recovery.

Kate, Oliver and Aled

Kate H said:

It does seem to take time for gastroentiritis to circulate through the body to the point where symptoms such as vomiting start appearing. And from my own experience it could have been the 'off' meat. My first Cavalier was a scavenger and on a long walk one day found and ate something definitely off and disgusting. He was fine for a week, ate a good supper, the next morning was slightly sick, and 24 hours later was dead. The vet said his body was full of poison and there was nothing they could have done, but he really did show no signs at all. He was 4.5 years old. It is a killer, and I'm so glad Ruby's attack seems to have been caught in time - best wishes for a full recovery.

Kate, Oliver and Aled

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oh kate im so sorry to read that . very sad indeed . i have a friend i walk ruby with and her first dog died at a year old of the same thing , the vet sent him home and he died on her lap . i know rubys tummy had been gurgling quite a bit, and occasionally i woke in the night cos she was licking her lips, but i had forgotten about the bad meat , and assumed it was the treats last weekend that caused the diarreah but now think it was brewing inside her :yikes. i had heard good things about nature diet but some reviews did say you occasionally get a blown one but its more in the bulk buy ones so i bought singly . ruby is brightening up a lot since her injection - thank goodness , she was so low last night it was horrible.

So glad to hear you caught this in time - very frightening when the weather is so bad and difficult to get out too. It is always essential to get veterinary treatment if they pass blood as haemorrhagic enteritis can cause very sudden deterioration.

It happened to me a few years ago when I was looking after an elderly Cav for a friend who went to Australia for Christmas. Thankfully she responded to the antibiotics and my half-hourly administration of fluids, but it was touch and go for 24 hours.

Hope things improve rapidly for you and Ruby now :wggle:

thanks wagtails :lotsaluv: shes not had any more diarrhea since the vet gave her the shot this morning.. and shes even found her ball and brings it to throw, but she soon comes back for a snooze and cuddle . shes on the mend though . it was a shock that she went downhill so bad last night , the snow had fallen very heavily , i had the emergency vets number under my pillow , and wellies and a shoulder bag for her in case i had to walk it :yikes luckily we managed to drive there first thing.. am looking forward to xmas now, especially after the best news ever for little Tilly mint

I am so glad Ruby is doing better. I think that if there were a problem with the meat having gone off, it is not due to the manufacturer or quality of the diet per se, but more likely to be a problem with transport or with storage at the retailer. If frozen raw diets defrost enough to go off and then are refrozen, most people would have no idea. The bad smell could have indicated meat that had gone off, but also with a raw diet, could depend on what went into that particular mix–if it was tripe based, for example, then it would stink! That would be normal, for raw fresh tripe.

As dogs pass food through fairly quickly (much faster than humans), generally I don't think you would expect to see diarrhea emerge two weeks later, unless there were organisms within off meat that slowly multiplied and eventually caused fully fledged illness (and an illness that could be very serious and life-threatening as noted by others, such as salmonella or E. coli poisoning. Even gastroenteritis on its own, once you start to see blood, can be life-threatening within 24 hours, so should never be treated casually. You were right to get her to the vet right away). But that said, gastroenteritis is not uncommon. That gurgling stomach noise is often a tipoff that all is not right but sometimes it goes away by itself and sometimes worsens.

A couple of my dogs are prone to upset tummies. Lily in particular–and she is a scavenger who will sometimes eat poop, cat or dog, which I am sure triggers some of her problems. The scavenger types can be very hard to control!

thanks karlin . whatever it was , shes almost back to normal , she has slept a lot today - we have all lost sleep due to her being up a few times a night with the runs . i think it may have been building up inside . the amount of mucussy ,bloody , jelly stuff she passed on friday night was horrific , i think it was infection passing out . i cant believe the odour that lingered in the house the evening i opened the packet of food, it was stiil in the air as we tried to get to sleep that night :yuk::yuk::yuk: shes back to the vets in the morning for a check up ( if we can get there !) but hopefully shes on the mend ... dont they have us worried at times like this :lpy: