Our 11 week old lab has had loose, runny stools since we got her at almost 8 weeks old. She had giardia before we got her and on retest needed second treatment (panacur and metronidazole). Runny poop persisted. She had extensive fecal testing and all tests were negative, including a second giardia test. She was put on zithromax before test results came in because vet was fairly sure there would be an issue, though it turns out there was not. She was also put on hills GI diet. Also tried chicken and rice and rice water. Still the runs. Vet did an enzyme test and told us to switch to lamb based limited ingredient diet in case chicken was the issue. The enzyme test showed elevated folate. The rest were ok. Now he's referring her to GI specialist for ultrasound. She's already had an abdominal x-ray which was normal. Rosie is 11 weeks old. Happy. Thriving. Gaining wait. She's 19 pounds. I'm completely stressed. Our last lab died of Addison's complications. It was a traumatic death. I'm so upset that we can't get on top of this. We were given the choice of the ultrasound or just waiting to see if the lamb based diet worked. Oh and she's on probioics. We're going to do the ultra sound. But I wonder if it's just too many antibiotics. Any thoughts?
Hi Helen, welcome to the forum I'm afraid this goes far beyond my own knowledge of puppy health and feeding, but I hope she's on the mend soon.
Hi Helen I’m going they something similar with Sophie. She had guardia about 4 weeks ago. One round of drugs and test came back ok. She had now contracted it again. Completely runny stool for 2 weeks now, after one round of drugs. Changing her diet to blend, prescription food, nothing is helping, she’s lost 4 pounds. I’m taking her to another vet I’m on Tuesday. I’m very concerned about her weight loss. And just constant runs, which makes cleaning the yard almost impossible and I’m so afraid she going to reinfect herself if it does clear up as she’s a grass eater and it impossible to clean every blade of grass when a pup has watery stool. I’m completely stressed, not to mention I can’t send her to daycare so working from home with her has also been a struggle. Wondering how your pup is doing now?
Typically, giardia takes several round of meds to clear up - it's very persistent. It's also near impossible to clean a yard once the puppy has been going to the bathroom out there, so re-infection is common. My puppy had it - you need to deep clean your house - wash all dog bedding, toys, your floors etc. Bathe the dog. Bathe again at end of treatment. I gave both my dogs daily baths just in case. Find a "clean" area for puppy to bathroom in your yard to avoid re-infection (pen) or stop going in the yard. I think the only thing that fully kills it is very high or very cold temps. There are other tips online but we just cleaned the yard the best we could and stopped playing back there until there was another deep freeze. Following anti-biotics, and the infection itself gut health takes a long time to come back. Purina Forti-flora worked well for us, but still have effects 6 months on. Our vet though that too many round of antibiotics were detrimental, so once the counts were low she wanted her immune system to take over. On and off diarrhea her whole life so far...
