Problem that keeps returning

Hope everything is still going well with Mya. It must be so wearing for you, especially having to get up in the night. Let us know how she gets on. Best wishes.

It's been a couple of days but thank you all so much. The samples were to rule out many things. She's in no pain at all. No weight loss. Everything about her was normal.

For two years Mya's had a raw meat diet mixed with dry. The vet said to take her off the raw meat.

We have a lot of bird feeders and she's never eaten anything from under them.

She still had the runs when on the new food of wheat free dry food and Chappie (chicken + rice).

She hasn't run free in the woods for a week now. For 3 days, she's just eaten dry food (wheat free). Stopped the Chappie because it had cereal in it.

After first day her stools were less liquid. She has got through two nights with not having to poop and yesterday and today normal poops.

Early days and she will stay on the lead all the time until I feel she is well over it.

Thank you all so much.

If Mya has free run of your woods you can’t be 100% sure she hasn’t eaten anything she shouldn’t have! One of our previous dogs picked up campylobacter from clearing up under the bird feeders - typical Labrador ? We got rid of the bird feeders and no more problems. Could this be a source of Mya’s problem?

I would definitely try fish and rice or potato.

I was wondering about a raw meat diet too.
Or maybe a salmon and potato, I believe Harrington’s do a salmon and potato dry food which works for some.
It’s hard unless you know what she may have developed a sensitivity to.
Good luck.

I agree with Nonogran that it may well be diet-related. A rescue dog that I fostered had a lifetime history of tummy upset and allergy problems. He'd cost a fortune in vet's fees.

I changed his food from (cereal free) chicken-based to salmon-based - and he was a whole new dog!

My terrier is allergic to all things avian- he only has to eat the tiniest bit - like bird suet, presumably made from chicken fat- and he gets bad stomach pains and we are out at all hours of the night (he won’t go in the garden).

We found it by trial and error which took some time because if you read about dog stomach upsets the recommendation is to put them on chicken and rice so it took us some time to work it out.

Chicken products are in a huge amount of commercial dog food.

My two Lovable hounds have no tummy problems but my friend's Border terrier really suffers. My friend is really careful as she has occasionally bought no added wheat/cereal foods with drastic results. It has to be wheat /grain free to be of any use.
Dogs can be prone to licking things when they are out and a dog I used to have was very poorly once due to this.

Apologies: have repeated a lot of what Cass has said (should have read the thread properly!).

I don’t know why she suddenly gets diarrhoea. The last time it happened we’d been housebound due to the weather so we know she hadn’t ate something she shouldn’t’ve.

Has the vet ruled out giardia? They can pick it up from other dogs and there does seem to be a lot of it around. Need to test a stool sample for it. Our dog often gets bouts of diarrhoea. I always keep pro kolin in the fridge and give her that for a day or so. When she was really bad a year or so ago I put her on a diet of gastrointestinal wet food and kibble along with pro kolin. I bought it from an online pet drug company as it’s much cheaper than buying it from the vet. I kept her on it for several weeks. For some reason Chappie doesn’t agree with her. Giardia needs treating with panacur wormer over several days. I did actually self medicate and had to admit to my vet that I’d given it to her but she was fine about it. You can get panacur online also.

Dwmxwg

Hi. We have a golden retriever who is nearly 2. When we got him the breeder recommended raw diet or next best Akela kibble. I wasn’t keen on raw so he was on the Akela until he was 8 months old but then began to have constant loose stool. We decided to switch to raw and have had no further issues. It isn’t cheap, ours is delivered monthly, frozen and costs about £100 a month

We also feed raw, Murphy is allergic to beef and its in almost every dog food. The diet stuff from the vet was eyewateringly expensive and he refused to eat for three days when we gave him that but since starting raw he has had no troubles at all..

Hi. We have a golden retriever who is nearly 2. When we got him the breeder recommended raw diet or next best Akela kibble. I wasn’t keen on raw so he was on the Akela until he was 8 months old but then began to have constant loose stool. We decided to switch to raw and have had no further issues. It isn’t cheap, ours is delivered monthly, frozen and costs about £100 a month

HI, not a vet but Ive had dogs for a long time... I presume the 3 stool samples are to check for giardia?

If so the best thing is to try a worming cure panacur, it workes well with giardia.
But you have to also keep the areas your dogs uses clean and bath the dog because giardia can be carried on the coat.

Not wanting to worry you but is the trouble recent ? Is your dog showing any tummy pain , Im thinking pancreas.. Had a beagle with that and a low fat diet kept him stable and happy without meds until he was 15.

If you do change diet it can take a week at least to notice any real change so dont give up too soon.

Good luck and I hope she feels better soon.

Thank you Kari4 and N&G.

MrM and I chatted for ages last night about Mya, She had another bad night and she's making herself sore with the licking. I'm going to do a process of elimination. Dry food (which is wheat free) only. I've put some down for her but it's still there.

Other than that, she's very well.

Poor Mya. It must make her as miserable as it makes you.

We went through some proper poorly tummy issues with Sam when he was younger. In the end to work out if it was food related, and what food it was we starved him for 24 hours, nothing but water. ( You can imagine how happy our little trencherman was lol) . Then we introduced one food at a time . We started with plain boiled rice, after 24 hours we added plain chicken , after 24 hours we added scrambled egg . After that it was the addition of one food every 24-48 hours.

Sam needed a grain free diet as it turns out. We also added veggies for fibre and roughage to his diet every few days .

I think its going to be slow going while you work out which food is causing the irritation but I think it might be the best way forward.

Good luck with it and feel better soon Mya.

I had the same problem with my dog - who had always been on a “white diet” due to digestive problems as a pup. You would wonder how chicken/rice/fish could cause a problem! The vet put him on a make called “Burns” (developed by a vet) he had duck & brown rice, nothing mixed in. I’ve since added Salmon/potato and Turkey/rice - all dry. No problems at all, decent poos

I might try another food. There's no wheat in either the dry or tinned food. I did do three days on rice and boiled chicken in the beginning and it improved a little.

We adopted her when she was 4 and she's had two years of perfect poos until this year. Nothings been changed in her two year diet over the two years.

Thanks for your support Nonogran

Our rescue Boxer came to my daughter & son in law with numerous allergies & gut/skin issues. Samples were tested at local university vet department & she's basically allergic or reactive to everything & anything you'd think innocuous which has been fed on wheat or grains.
She now has a wheat and cereal free dry salmon & sweet potato diet with a little bit of wet wheat free food to moisten it. All allergies/intolerances/licking of her itchy vulva etc has stopped. It took us ages and ages to get the diet right but she's amazing now & a very happy healthy dog. Good luck with your dear doggy.