# Ack! Spoo has bloody diarrhea and is vomiting!



## Sotoya (Jul 3, 2012)

Yikes! My mini mix had vomiting and bloody diarrhea and was diagnosed with HGE (hemorrhagic gastroenteritis). He spent the night in the emergency room and a few days at the vet where I worked. Combination of anti nausea meds, fluids, b-12, metrodinazole, and some other meds got him back to normal but it was scary. He is also on Instinct raw lamb formula but it wasn't the culprit. I would not wait and see with the combination of vomiting and bloody diarrhea. I would take a trip to your local emergency vet ASAP. 


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## petitpie (Nov 16, 2011)

I have seen this (HGE), too. Very scary and dangerous.....


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## MaryLynn (Sep 8, 2012)

I don't know a lot of the digestive tract of a dog, but bright red blood would indicate that the bleeding should be occurring in the lower intestine. 
This could be a minor issue, and caused by a single event, or be a minor infection etc, but I am not sure what to make of the situation because of all of the other symptoms and the vomiting. 

Did your vet to a rectal exam or xray or anything to see check for trauma to that area (perhaps from all the straining or polyps or something?). 

I would probably seek the advice of an additional vet, just to be safe (if you can, I know some area's have very few clinics).


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## schnauzerpoodle (Apr 21, 2010)

How many fecal tests has she had? The lab didn't see anything until after the 3rd fecal exam.

My mini has had loose stool for over 2 months now and has just started to get better. While mine didn't have bloody diarrhea he did have some red blood in his vomit twice. It's scary. I understand how frustrated and worried you are. Sometimes they just need the antibiotics to take care of things.

It doesn't sound like Parvo. The Parvo poop has a very distinctive smell. But I think you need to take her to the vet right away with a stool sample.


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## lwm1984 (Apr 15, 2012)

Thanks for the responses. Just to clarify: I posted this after we went to the vet this morning. She did a rectal exam, but didn't feel that an xray was necessary. We actually did see my dog's secondary vet today (clinic has five on staff, and I alternate between these two depending on availability). Both seem to be confident in their diagnosis of bacterial infection. My primary vet regularly does consults with some GI specialists when he isn't positive of the problem, so I trust that he'd tell me if I should be concerned about something serious.

She seems relatively ok (except for the diarrhea). She stopped vomiting (only did it the one time), and there's no dehydration, lethargy, and her bowel movements are not uncontrollable. She tells me that she has to go outside and has no accidents in the house. I really hope the metrodinazole takes care of whatever 'C' bacteria keeps on showing up in her stool. I think I've had 3 or so fecal tests done since this started.

My vet said to fast her for 24 hours, and then go easy on the food for the next few days. Should I continue to give her the probiotic while she's taking antibiotics or not?


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## schnauzerpoodle (Apr 21, 2010)

I double-dose on probiotics whenever my dog is on antibiotics and a week after the course.


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## Indiana (Sep 11, 2011)

Good idea to give her a break from eating for a while; it's so weird but dogs do seem to throw up or poop blood quite easily when the digestive tract is irritated. Once she's back on food, have you tried cooked unspiced pumpkin? Maddy eats everthing she finds and often gets diarrhea as a result; the pumpkin clears it us quite nicely and she enjoys it.


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## Liafast (Apr 9, 2011)

Another thought is have her checked for worms....She might have picked them up on the farm. I have seen dogs with bloody pooh and vomitting with worms.


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## caroline429 (Mar 5, 2012)

If the "c" bacteria your vet is referring to is clostridium perfringens, it can be a tough one to get rid of. It can cause diarrhea to come and go and bloody diarrhea is one of the symptoms. There is some thought this bacteria might cause HGE.

It is often difficult to get a definitive diagnosis for c. perfringens because 80% of all dogs have it in their stool. When it gets out of hand, it causes a toxin which is what causes the diarrhea. The only way to tell for sure is a specialized stool test called an enterotoxin analysis. From what I understand, it is a very expensive test.

Quite often with a c. perfringens overgrowth, a week of tylosin or metronidazole doesn't work. I have a friend whose dog was prone to these overgrowths and the only thing that would knock it out for any length of time was 3 weeks of amoxicillin.

My Cali went through months of loose stool this past summer. During this time, she had 3 fecal tests, a week of tylosin and a week of metronidazole. I tried changing her diet, adding more fiber and using probiotics the vet gave me. Nothing made much of a difference and eventually she started having bloody diarrhea and vomited a few times. By then my vet suspected c. perfringens. I decided not to get the enterotoxin analysis and just to go ahead with 3 weeks of amoxicillin. That did stop the bloody diarrhea though her stools were still very soft at the end of the antibiotics. 

I think she had had so many antibiotics by then that we killed off most of the bacteria in her intestinal tract! I've finally gotten the stool firmed up. The probiotics the vet gave her during all of this didn't work at all, so I've now got her on a very good human probiotic that is mostly lactobacillus acidophilus. That got the stool halfway back to normal. I started adding in a little bit of fish oil last week and things are now almost 100%.


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## Samba (Sep 14, 2012)

I know a lot of people are huge fans of raw diet, and Im not suggesting you stop feeding it if its your preferred method of feeding. 

But, I would recommend stopping that raw food temporarily, and start feeding cooked food for a little while. I have treated (recently) several dogs on raw food diets that have had bacterial translocation into the abdomen and have become septic. This has resulted in thousands of dollars in ICU bills. Now, its a very unlikely thing to happen, but if your dogs small intestine/large instestine is currently compromised (it is with bloody diarrhea), you will decrease the chances of that nasty bacteria seeping through the intestinal tract if you cook the food first.

Once she is back to having normal stool for a week, then you can go back to feeding raw. I think for most dogs raw food is just fine, but you really do need to be careful feeding it when there are compromises in the intestine.

Boiling chicken/fish etc. and adding rice (if you arent anti-rice) is often a nice safe GI diet for those coming out of HGE or other gastrointestinal issues.


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