# At a loss



## DQZNY (Jan 2, 2013)

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice here.

I took my 8 week old puppy to my vet 2 days after getting him. I brought a stool sample. Puppy checked out great and stool was normal. I did take every precaution with keeping puppy in my arms and having him wrapped in a towel which I placed on the examination table.

About 3 days after that, puppy starting having pudding stool. I took puppy back to Vet with stool sample and was told blood work showed high white blood count, stool normal. Vet told me puppy had some kind of infection and put him on antibiotics for a week and chicken rice EN purina diet for about 3 days.

Puppy responded well. Went back to Vet for recheck, same precautions with towel, and puppy checked bloodwork still some white blood cells, so more antibiotics.

After medicine finished, took puppy back for recheck and all was normal. That evening, puppy started with pasty stools again, and threw up in backyard. Puppy went right back to Vet where they kept him on IV for the rest of the evening after he threw up in office 2nd time. I picked him up later that night.

Vet prescribed stomach antibiotics, gave him a shot to calm his stomach and sent him home with the chicken and rice EN diet and some powdered pro biotics to help with his digestive system. 

This past weekend the medicine was finished and back to a normal diet of Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream Salmon puppy food. Puppy had log stools for maybe half a day. Now stools are back to pasty and this morning puppy woke me from my sleep at 5am by vomitting in his crate. It was more dry heaving then anything, he did vomit a little bit of foamy yellow stuff. His stool is pasty and he did not eat all of his food at 6am. Left more than half in bowl. He is drinking well.

What do I do???? Do I take him back to vet or wait and see? I am worried Vet is doing nothing for him or the office is making him sick. All this medicine and puppy continues with pudding stool!!

Puppy does put EVERYTHING in his mouth. I am constantly pulling out grass chunks from his mouth when he goes in the yard. And this is with him always on leash. He did have some bacon yesterday, small pieces as training treats.

Puppy is now 12 weeks old.


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## Poodlemama99 (Feb 12, 2010)

First thing I would get an opinion from another vet. It might be something in the office or not but after all those antibiotics and no cure I would definitely find another vet to check the puppy out. It could also be something in your house or yard making him sick. 


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I think I'd stick with one food for a bit - tum infection, plus antibiotics, plus changing food back to TOTW is a lot for one small pup. The vomiting sounds like empty stomach heaves, which is not uncommon first thing in the morning, especially if he didn't eat all his supper. Might be a good idea to get another opinion too.


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## DQZNY (Jan 2, 2013)

Thanks everyone. I think I am gonna hold off on taking him to Vet so quickly again and monitor him. It was not food that he vomitted and he did go back and finish his food this morning. 
He is a big puppy and I think we forget that he is still just a little baby at barely 3 months, that his poor little stomach must be so sensitive to everything. He has been on so much medication already! And I probably made it worse with the little pieces of bacon I used for training yesterday. I just wanted to find a treat that he would be willing to listen for.
I am also worried of him always trying to eat everything in my yard, which is Texas grass and weeds. (I am from NJ and new here in TX and the grass is definately different here).
Any suggestions of the pudding poo? I have read on internet this could be caused by stress or too much play or overfeeding. What do you guys think?


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I'd stick with a blandish diet and the occasional scrambled egg, and see if it settles down. Keeping on with the probiotics may also help. As you say, if he is eating, drinking and playing, and the more obvious infections have been ruled out, watchful waiting may be the way. But I'm always extra careful when it is a pup - they can dehydrate so very quickly.


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## WillyBilly (Jan 8, 2013)

Willy is 8 months, 48#'s now. I got him at 4 months. He's a large SPOO. I had him on several dry foods before settling on Blue Buffalo Basics Turkey & Potato Adult at age 7 months. Problem was his stools were mixed from being solid and pudding like, mostly pudding. He had the most number of solid stools on this food, so i was sure this food was good. Because he still had a few soft stools I decided to add canned food of the same brand. I gave him a can a day. Then I read "over feeding" can cause pudding/soft stools. I read the bag and can and discovered I was over feeding by 2 cups of food per day. I cut down and the soft stools stopped, mostly. This week I decided to stop feeding the canned food and he's still doing well. I'm still paranoid and follow Willy outside to pick up droppings for fear he would eat them, and to see if he is eating anything else in the yard. He seems to like sticks and will chew them off my bushes. I'm suspecting that could effect him some. Not much else I can do at this point. It took me 4 months and several vet visits before I figured this out. Not all dogs are difficult; mine was a puzzle to figure out. 


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## Rusty (Jun 13, 2012)

At our vet, there's two stool sample tests that can be done - one's about $80 and tests for a few things, and the other's about $150 and tests for EVERYTHING (parvo, salmonella, distempber, giardia, parasites, infections, distemper, etc.). I don't know what test(s) you had done, but it may be worth checking to make sure you got the "tests for everything" stool test. Looking at my records, it was a Canina Diarrhea Panel PCR that we had done on Begley and caught a case of Cryptosporidia (which can be tough to find in some tests). Positive results from the test indicate that the DNA or RNA of a particular organism was detected in the fecal sample.

I hope your puppy feels better soon!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Sorry to hear you have another thing to worry about. I would be very consistent with what you feed to let his tummy settle. Bland food with rice should help firm things up. Use your regular kibble as training treats. Puppies that haven't been given lots of extraordinary treats generally are happy to work for kibble. 

I might consider trying a different vet too, unless you or someone you know and trust has used this practice and the specific doctor for a long time and trusts them. See if you can find a good recommendation from someone. When we got Lily I didn't know any of the vets close to me, so even though there is one five minutes from my house we still go to the practice (and mostly the owner) I have used for twenty years. Just before I picked her up from the breeder I thought about it and decided it was worth the 45 minute trip to know that I could trust the opinion I got about her. Besides, he is a poodle person (how lucky for me).


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## WillyBilly (Jan 8, 2013)

Rusty, prior to having that "look for everything" stool test, was your dog's stool consistency irradiate between hard/soft/pudding? Willy is mostly hard but a soft one comes out once in a while where I can't pick it up without some left behind in the grass. 


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## Rusty (Jun 13, 2012)

Begley's stool was soft pretty much from the day he came to live with us. Not pudding-like, but more like when you can't pick it up without some left behind on the grass. It escalated into a few days where it was intermittently soft/pudding like/watery. It seemed to respond to a course of antibiotics, but then recurred after about two days off those antibiotics. He's now a different, stronger antibiotic for the Crypto, which we hope will be effective (a possible side effect of the antibiotic is diarrhea, which makes it tough to tell whether the meds are working! will need to do another PCR test next week when he finishes with the meds to know for sure).

I'm not sure that it sounds like Will has exactly the same symptoms, but, for us, I think it would have been good value to do the more thorough, expensive stool test earlier. We could have diagnosed the crypto sooner (it's a non-obvious problem to look for, I understand) and been on an appropriate medication right from the get-go, or, at the very least, ruled out both the obvious and non-obvious diseases/infections/parasites, and moved on to ruling out other culprits (food, IBS, etc.).


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## WillyBilly (Jan 8, 2013)

Thanks for the history Rusty. Sounds like Begley has more severe diarrhea than what Willy ever had. Willy never had true diarrhea; only soft stools. The Blue Buffalo Basics line was recommended to me because it excludes Wheat, Corn, Soy, All dairy & eggs, which are all known causes of digestion and allergy problems. Since he is food driven I use his kibble as treats. 





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## LEUllman (Feb 1, 2010)

Can't the antibiotics themselves cause/worsen the diarrhea? They sure can and do for humans!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Yes antibiotics can kill the indigenous microflora that are necessary in addition to whatever they have been prescribed to target. This is why probiotics like acidophilus often are useful.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Worst stomach problems I ever had was after repeated ABs while undergoing chemotherapy - and that was after years of IBS and a brush with dysentary! Have to admit that I threw the medical advice out of the window, and ate huge quantities of live yoghurt, fresh cheese, and every probiotic food my body was telling me it needed, despite being told it would probably reinfect me. Worked for me - though I couldn't possibly recommend the same route to anyone else!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Plain yogurt is a very good source of probiotic organisms. I make my own organic yogurt using multi organism starter cultures. It is one of my dogs' favorite treats, along with blue berries, other fruit and for Peeves even bell peppers and other assorted veggies. But I would still keep things simple until pup's stomach settles, then add tiny amounts of other healthy treats one at a time so you know what works with him and what doesn't. Another thing I remember my vet suggesting when our dogs were babies was to give cookies of the same brand as the food they were getting so that the nature of the protein was the same along with any other ingredients and processing related issues.


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## sweetheartsrodeo (Sep 19, 2012)

I would wonder if the grass has had weed and feed on it... It takes forever to get out of the grass, and can hurt dogs.


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