# Gut Feeling



## Caniche (Jun 10, 2013)

So here's what's doing with Auguste, my 15 month old toy poodle. He's active, lean, smart....except that he's had constant soft stools within a few weeks of bringing him home last September. The stool will start hard and firm and then turn into a puddly mess. He also seems to strain a lot and have to walk around quite a bit with very little stool actually coming out. I constantly have to clean him up when he's done. 

We ran a three fecal samples over the course of the months - it came back negative, positive for coccidia and then negative again after two treatments. We've had him on dewormer multiple times. Our breeder mentioned that her dogs do not tolerate turkey very well, so we stopped all turkey. That didn't help. I tried Prozyme, that didn't help. So someone on here recommended Prostora. I kept him on 2X a day for the first week and then we went down to just once a day and he's practically normal. Sometimes I think it works too well - he seems to get a bit bound up and then has an accident like he suddenly has to go. 

I've thought about doing NutriScan on him since he does get a wide variety of foods. But would a probiotic help his gut if the culprit was a food intolerance?

Also, Prostora is expensive - about $30 for 15 tabs. Should he be on a probiotic the rest of his life? I've been told by others that if he needs a probiotic his whole life then there's clearly another problem that needs to be addressed. 

Thanks!


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## twyla (Apr 28, 2010)

My girl Pia had a similiar though she did have Giardia for a long time (poop eater) so when she was finally clear of that and still had diarrhea, I eliminated chicken, then beef from her diet I switched her to fish, she finally had normal poop, I also tried lamb which made her vomit and gave her bad diarrhea. Tried Kangaroo and venison but she wasn't keen on them.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

If you do NutriScan and find there are food sensitivities a probiotic will not improve things, only eliminating the foods he is sensitive to will result in a meaningful and lasting chage.


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## Dechi (Aug 22, 2015)

Have you tried raw feeding ? You can buy an all-ready kind so you only have to put it in the bowl. Most dogs will do exceptionally well on raw.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

If you do the NutriScan, you will know what if any food sensitivities he has instead of going through trial and error or anecdotal guesswork. Your dog simply chews a test strip and you send the strip to get the results on 26 common food components. My breeder included the name of an animal nutritionist in my puppy packet and I recall her rates were much more than the NutriScan test.


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## Caniche (Jun 10, 2013)

lily cd re said:


> If you do NutriScan and find there are food sensitivities a probiotic will not improve things, only eliminating the foods he is sensitive to will result in a meaningful and lasting chage.


But if the probiotics are helping then it's very likely NOT a food intolerance, right? That's what I'm trying to figure out - what's going on with his system where a probiotic is clearing him up. And I don't want to just keep him on a probiotic for the rest of his life when he's only a year old. 



Dechi said:


> Have you tried raw feeding ? You can buy an all-ready kind so you only have to put it in the bowl. Most dogs will do exceptionally well on raw.


 I do feed dehydrated/air-dried raw and some kibble.


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## Dechi (Aug 22, 2015)

Caniche said:


> But if the probiotics are helping then it's very likely NOT a food intolerance, right? That's what I'm trying to figure out - what's going on with his system where a probiotic is clearing him up. And I don't want to just keep him on a probiotic for the rest of his life when he's only a year old.
> 
> I do feed dehydrated/air-dried raw and some kibble.


Dehydrated is not raw. If you ever want to feed raw, don't give any kibbles either, it defies the purpose. If I were you I'd give it a shot.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I would try an elimination diet, and possibly several small meals a day. If he is getting different foods at each meal, it could be that just one is causing the upset (tmi, but I have had similar experience myself!). You would have to be scrupulous - no stealing the other dogs' food, no treats with different ingredients, no table scraps - but finding a diet that he can safely eat would be worth it in the long term. The other possibility is simply too much food - my family would cheerfully feed my tinies double what they need if I didn't pre-measure, and on the odd occasion it has happened the result has been very much as you describe.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

NutriScan will provide definitive data, anything else is just guessing and rather pointless if all you do is guess when you have an alternative that will tell you what to do based on that data.

fjm she could do an elimination diet, but NutriScan would allow her to get to the end faster than taking out one thing at a time. Caniche if you do decide to do the elimination diet then don't give any probiotics along the way so that you can really know what works and what doesn't.

BTW do I recall you work at a vet clinic? What do the people at work and your regular vet recommend? Unless someone is themselves a vet it doesn't seem sensible to bypass the advice of a professional.


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## Caniche (Jun 10, 2013)

lily cd re said:


> NutriScan will provide definitive data, anything else is just guessing and rather pointless if all you do is guess when you have an alternative that will tell you what to do based on that data.
> 
> fjm she could do an elimination diet, but NutriScan would allow her to get to the end faster than taking out one thing at a time. Caniche if you do decide to do the elimination diet then don't give any probiotics along the way so that you can really know what works and what doesn't.
> 
> BTW do I recall you work at a vet clinic? What do the people at work and your regular vet recommend? Unless someone is themselves a vet it doesn't seem sensible to bypass the advice of a professional.


I do work at a vet clinic. They're a little old school and haven't grasped grain-free and food intolerance testing yet. So I consult with them and work out a game plan but also do a lot of individual research. 

I would much rather do NutriScan over an elimination diet. I just wanted to know that if a food intolerance is causing this, would the probiotic have even helped him? Or since the probiotic DID help does that mean it isn't a food intolerance at all. 

I hope that makes sense.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Okay, you can order NutriScan on your own and you can also pay a small fee for a consultation with Dr. Dodds. If you have insurance it should pay for the testing. By the same token insurance should pay for the probiotic.

I would not say you should conclude that the probiotic treatment leading to improvement is data that allows a conclusion that the probiotic fixed the problem. There is a vast gulf of empty meaningless space between a data driven conclusion and an empirically derived coincidental observation. The probiotic may have masked a food sensitivity rather than fixing the real causative issue.

This is a far reaching example, but hopefully it will help explain why observing a change with probiotic doesn't eliminate the possibility of a a food sensitivity. The bacterium _Helicobacter pylorii _has been shown in westerners to be causally linked to gastritis, gastric ulcer disease and a risk for gastric cancer. One of the common treatments for gastritis and ulcers is to give proton pump inhibitors like prilosec or nexium. These drugs do nothing to cure the Helicobacter infection. They just mask the signs and symptoms like belching, heartburn and reflux. The person still has the organism and is still at risk for the more severe complications of its presence. You need to eliminate the organism (root cause of problem, not mask its presence.

If prostora has improved the overt issue that does not mean it has cured the underlying problem. NutriScan will show you what the underlying problem is.

I do hope you have insurance or have enough savings to self insure (as I do)!


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