Grace's loose bowels

Hi Everybody:

I'm brand new to Cavalier Talk and really appreciate what I have been reading.

My name is Ann and I have a 3 1/2 yr. old Blenheim girl. Well, I just added a 6 month old Tri to our family (she is 7 months now). She's been having loose bowels and diarrhea almost since we got her. I've been trying everything the vet has suggested and have had her fecal sample tested (negative), had her wormed anyway, put her on chicken and rice for a few days, but her stools are still not as firm as I think they should be. And she has some liquid squirts at the end of the bm. She does not appear sick and runs around having a good time, but I'm concerned that she is not getting enough nutrition because she's having so many bms.

The vet suggested I take her off puppy food and I did that and it helped some. I talked to the small pet store owner about food and she suggested that I feed her lamb and rice rather than adult turkey and rice because the turkey concoction has corn in it. I've been using Regal dog food and my older girl does well on it.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what I can do? Will the lamb and rice help? I also heard that if you give them a little canned pumpkin it might firm up their stools. I'm really worried about little Gracie and I'm willing to try almost anything if it will help although I am concerned that part of her problem may be all this switching foods and the stress of all the vet visits, etc.

Thanks, Ann and Grace

Welcome to the board!

Have a read through this section as there are a few quite long threads on diet and stomach upset that should give you lots of info. We have folks here who have had some horrendous GI problems resolved so I hope they can give some advice.

My own suggestions would be to get her on boiled or broiled plain chicken and rice with maybe a tablespoon of plain (not spice) canned pumpkin and leave her on that for a week or two. She will be fine on that -- see if she begins to firm up. If so, then start substituting in a a good sensitive diet food with no grains in it (eg no corn or wheat). I am sure some here will give you food suggestions. You can gradually add a bit more of the dry each day. You need to keep her on a chosen food for a few weeks, not a few days, to see how she does. It tends to take a while to know if one works. Changing them around can cause more upset for a dog with a sensitive stomach.

That's why I'd try to get her stools stable on the chicken and rice, which tends to work. I'd not feed at all for 24 hours -- give her bowels a rest -- then introduce the chicken and rice. Most vets will advise not to feed for a day when a dog has the runs so this will be fine. Also be sure there are no treats being fed and so on that might be counteracting the effect of the bland diet.

Here's a relevant thread:

http://www.cavaliertalk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1803

hi ann. i feel your pain. :? zack had bloody diarrhea the day i brought him home. in his case, deworming cured him but that treatment came after a lot of ineffective treatments.

I don't think you said whether you're giving him canned food or dry food.

Zack has had too soft stools even after he stopped having florid colitis and bloody liquid diarrhea during the first month i had him, even after that, stool were too soft so that it was messy to clean up. When i first got him, he was just eating Innova(sp?) kibble. He had the colitis and after three weeks of that, he started vomiting too and acting listless, and a vet put him on prescription canned food, Hills low residue, I/D diet i think,with no improvement. after that, he went on boiled chicken and rice for two weeks exclusively and another couple of weeks mixed with other foods. On the recommendation of others who had had good results, i began giving him Natural Balance duck and potato, those are low allergen foods i guess. because Zack would not like any of these foods except home cooked boiled chicken and rice, i was switching from one to another, dry and canned. He wasn't eating much and the stool remained overly soft and sometimes loose.

on karlin's advice, i started just giving him the kibble of my choice and nothing else, no treats, no nothing, just that one particular food, it didn't really matter which one, there are lots of good quality kibbles. As it is, i'm giving him Merrick's Grammys Pot Pie kibble, because it appeals to ME :lol: Zack is not thrilled with it but he eats it, he has a great appetite and eats plenty every day. The real bonus is, his stool became firm and easy to pick up.

i sure hope you can find what works for Grace. i know it's so hard to feel helpless after trying many things with the loose stool continuing unphased. I was concerned about Zack getting enough nutrients when i was giving him just home cooked boiled chicken and rice. I also put digestive enzyme powder on it, and also probiotic powder. My vet gave me Missing Link, a nutrient powder, but i never used it because on the bag it says it can cause loose stools in the beginning. i didn't want to cloud the clinical picture.

anyway, i'm not concerned about his nutrition when he eats plenty of kibble, it seems nutritious. One day, i will introduce other foods into his diet but at this point, i think if i did that, he'd go off the kibble again and there'd be soft stools again.

Something that did help the diarrhea was Tylan or Tylosan (sp?) which has anti-diarrheal properties, it's an antibiotic for large animals but for small animals it's used to diarrhea.

My friend had a couple of small dogs, and they would get loose bowels and diarrhea from time to time, and she told me her vet recommended that she just give them cottage cheese and rice, and she says it worked every time without fail. I haven't tried it.

i sure hope you find the way out of the diarrhea, no pun intended. i've heard people report that they dealt with it for months and years, but eventually did find solutions that worked. One person i know, her dog has addisons disease, and she swears by the Tylan, gave it to her for years, very low dose, finally weaned her off although her vet wanted to continue it permanently.

Welcome to the group, if any of my lot gets upset tummies, they go straight onto the sensitive biscuits my vets has - I have to find out the name - it is an adult food but within one meal their stools are firm.