HandicappedPets.Net

Sorry, this is super long.

My Frankie is being somewhat of a mystery. In August we went on a mini vacation and he went to Petco and Petsmart. This is a rare treat because we live in the middle of nowhere. Frankie picked out a cow hoof and a beef roll. He had one bout of diarrhea after. I just assumed it was the beef roll. He then started to poop in the bed at night. This became an everyday thing. We took away the cow hoof, think maybe that was it, but he continued to have what the vet called large stool diarrhea.

Fecal test and bloodwork all came back normal, but I could tell that he wasn't feeling well. He started a no treat diet with canned g/I food from the vet and probiotics. After a week I started reintroducing his food. No diarrhea, but he felt sick again. He also had started drinking and peeing a lot. Back to the vet for antibiotics. He started to feel better. I tried giving him his meds via homemade pill pockets made with flour and peanut butter. He started feeling bad again. I stopped those and went back to the g/I food.

He seems fine now so today I tried mixing some of his normal food, Wellness small breed, with the canned. We'll see how he is tomorrow.

Could he just develop a sensitive stomach? He's just never had any issues before. Could there be something we are missing? Could this have anything to do with his partial paralysis?

He has a week left of antibiotics and then we are going to do a urine analysis. We've solved the pooping in bed issue thanks to folks on the forum and his poop is back to nprmal. It's been 10 days without an incident - yippy.

It isn't something normally associated with paralysis, so it sounds like more of just a doggy thing?

I tried looking up dog treat recalls for 2017. If there was a recall, any products should have been pulled from the shelf but maybe something was missed? You can look at this list. I didn't read the whole list but the first one mentions tummy trouble.

https://www.petful.com/recall-lists/dog-food-recalls/

Another idea might be, did your dog drink from a community water bowl at the store? I know at my PetsMart there is a water bowl underneath the drinking fountain back by the restrooms, for example. If he did, maybe he picked up some kind of intestinal parasite? I wonder if the fecal test the vet ran was comprehensive or if maybe it just checked for certain common things. You could ask if there are any other fecal tests that might test for different parasites or whatever?

I hope you'll post anything you find out.

I wonder if probiotics would help...?

They did put Frankie on probiotics. The antibiotics he's on aren't supposed to interfer with the probiotics.

I'm just at such a loss. I've had dogs all my life and this is the first time that a medical issue hasn't been easy to pin point.

Some belly bugs, like giardia, can be evil to diagnose. Have you tried prednisone? Metronidazole? They can even be used together.

Frankie is still on probiotics, but otherwise back to his normal food. He's doing a lot better. We did a urine analysis and that came back normal. I am glad he's better, but I don't like that we didn't pinpoint a cause.

I would feel the same way. If he's better, that's the main thing, but you don't know what the secret was if he gets it again. There are things like that which kind of just seem to take care of themselves, so hopefully whatever it was, his system straightened it out. I wonder if maybe it had something to do with stress.

CarolC wrote:I wonder if maybe it had something to do with stress.

That could be it. It started after we went on a mini vacation. We stayed in a hotel and we went to Petco and Petsmart where he got lots of treats.

I found out today that Frankie has acute pancreatitis. That's why his stomach has been so touchy since August.

Oh, OK. I'm glad you finally got a diagnosis. I wonder if he just had a mild case before this, because it's been going on for quite a while, hasn't it? One of my dogs had pancreatitis and got over it. I hope they can get him feeling better soon, now that you know what's going on.

Hmm. What is the treatment for that?

It's been 20 years so my memory is hazy, but I think it was antibiotics and special diet.

Ah.

The doc is also thinking Frankie many have food allergies. We did bloodwork for that yesterday. It will take three weeks to get the results. In the meantime he's on the I/D canned stew, antibiotics, prednisone, probiotics and no treats. I was baking dog cookies today and as I pulled out the sheet from the oven one cookie fell off and slid across the floor right to Frankie. Of course he ate it. There was nothing I could do. So far he seems ok. He thought it was tasty.

He is adorable!

CarolC wrote:He is adorable!