Reoccurring gastro

mur223

Hi all,

Our poor little guy is constantly unwell (every two months or so) with bouts of diarrhea or throwing up or both. He is 2 years old, and from the age of 5/6 months he has had this ongoing issue. I'd say at this rate he is our vets best customer!!

We have tried hypoallergenic diet which was no use, he would go off the food, throw up and diarrhea etc. We would bring him to the vets and the usual round of anti biotics, anti neasua pills are prescribed. We have had some exploratory tests done and everything showing up as a clean bill of health which has us baffled. Seeing as he did not enjoy & it was of no health benefit to him We moved him from the royal canin hypoallergenic food onto the butternut box food which he is obsessed with. All was going well for a few months and we were delighted. Now all of a sudden he is going back into the same cycle of being unwell every two months. We are going to undergo further exploratory testing but the most well known ones have already been done so not sure what good will come of it.

Just wondering has anyone else been in the same situation? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks so much

N

cocker5

have you tried adding any probiotics to his daily food?

also with his food what protein source are you feeding? Lots of dogs can have allergies to poultry?

my springer is on a full raw diet and too much offal or the likes of venison are too rich for him and can cause him issues - so I keep it to a minimum

Faith

You could definitely try a probiotic like Fortiflora in his food every day. It’s expensive but probably cheaper than all your vet visits!

Could he be eating anything outside of his food that causes this? Does it tend to happen after going anywhere in particular, like could he be eating rabbit or fox poo?

What kinds of treats do you give him? Do you ever give him something as a special treat that could cause it, like rawhide, pig ears, bull pizzles etc? Does the dog ever get table scraps? Dogs can’t tolerate LOTS of common human foods like onion, garlic, grapes, etc

Our 16 week old puppy gets runny poos when we over feed her, so we’ve cut back her meal quantities - could you be over feeding the dog between his meals and treats?

is there ever blood or mucus in the poo?

mur223

We have been given canigest from the vet every time he gets these bouts. But never thought of including it as an everyday thing. Might be a good idea thanks. We are very strict with his diet no human food or store bought treats. And highly doubt he would be eating fox poo etc he is always in my company and watch him closely on walks. We have hypoallergenic treats only. The butternut box food does include some chicken dishes so maybe this is the issue. But this doesn't explain the fact he was getting regularly sick on the royal canin hypoallergenic food too. We got a huge amount of tests done previously which cost a pretty penny, so the only thing we can do now is go for further tests we don't want him to be suffering anymore

mur223

Yes sometimes there is mucus in his poo. And blood when it gets bad. What would the mucus mean?

Faith

I’m not a vet at all, but I would think that suggests it’s colitis, which is basically just an inflammation of the colon. This can be transient and acute (ie in response to eating something dodgy) or more chronic, possibly due to IBS or something similar

My anecdote should not be taken as data, but our cat had very similar symptoms to your dog. Starting from when we got him, he would have bouts of diarrhea every couple of months. It would settle in time, particularly with probiotics, but never went away. It got worse over time, with more blood and mucus, and less time between flare ups. Our vets initially insisted it was a food allergy too, but we requested an ultrasound be done, which eventually led to a diagnosis of a very rare, very serious virus that caused systemic inflammation. Now, to be clear, this virus is only a risk to cats so it’s not what’s wrong with your pup, but if you haven’t had an ultrasound yet, it might be time.

Hopefully it’s a mundane cause like a poultry allergy, or if it’s IBS, daily probiotics could help, but I’d feel it’s worth getting an ultrasound if you can. Vets can often be quick to dismiss common ailments, in my experience, and sometimes the owner needs to really push for more investigations to be done. Our vet thought we were overreacting by getting the ultrasound, but if we hadn’t, our cat would have been dead in weeks so I’m pretty happy with our decision.

tk123

Canigest/pastes, foriflora etc are more for acute cases so only last a few days and will work out expensive.. a daily probiotic will be cheaper and you can source yourself. (You could stock up on the paste on eg Amazon.de too and save)

I use this one and have it sent to addresspal - Bailey hasn’t had any tummy issues since we switched it it (from Mercola) in 2 years apart from when we ran out of it once!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01DCNI1VQ/ref=sns_myd_detail_page

Others you could try if you don’t want to pay addresspal/extra vat

https://christiesdirect.ie/yudigest-chewable-tablets-ie.html

Or Fetch have one but I’ve never tried it

https://www.fetchyourpetneeds.ie/product/four-leaf-rover-bifido-for-fido-probiotics/

mur223

Thanks so much. Yes good shout we will 100% be pushing for more tests. Surely there should be more done than a round of anti biotics every 2 months. We are going to try the daily probiotics hopefully we will see some improvement. Thanks for all your help.