Hi everyone, I have a beautiful 4 month old lab named Willow. She has been treated since we got her for a sensitive tummy and is now on Eukanuba Fish and Potatoes due to consistently soft poo. Yesterday, however, she had some diarrhoea while we were on our walk and when we got home she pooped in the house which she has never done before. Similarly diarrhoea. Today it was a little better her poo this morning was firm but the last little bit was watery/diarrhoea. My feeling is that this has come from her drinking some pond water yesterday. Other than the diarrhoea she seems absolutely fine so I’m wondering what I should do at this point. I’ve given her half the amount of food I normally do so far and have an appointment at the vet for Tuesday (because of the bank holiday on Monday). I know there are diseases like Giardia that she could have contracted so I’m not sure if I should go to the after hours vet or not. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Hi there, and welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that your puppy has been unwell. It can be difficult to decide whether or not to use an after hours vet - does your puppy seem lively and happy? Is she eating and drinking enthusiastically? Is she a good weight for her age? If the answer to all those questions is yes then you might be okay to wait until Tuesday. However, if she is having watery diarhea, if she is having diarhea of any kind more than once or twice a day, if she is losing her 'sparkle', or is quite small for her age, or if she is having diarrhea during the night then the answer would be take her in or at least telephone the vet for advice. At four months old your puppy is a bit more resilient than she was a month ago, but she could still go downhill quite rapidly at this age. So you need to keep asking yourself those questions, and if in doubt, phone the vet. Even if there is no vet answering the phone, you can usually leave a message for a call-back which would put your mind at rest. Hope she is much better soon
Thank you so much. She doesn’t seem upset at all. She’s lively and a good weight for her age. She ate breakfast and lunch as quickly and enthusiastically as ever and didn’t show any signs of not being her self when I took her for a walk. Her last poo was before breakfast which was mostly firm but the last bit was watery diarrhoea. I’ve halved the amount of food which is probably why she hasn’t done anything since. I’ll wait to see how she does later on. Many thanks for your advice it gives me peace of mind that I don’t need to rush to the out of hours vet.
Great thread. My 4 month old pup just went through giardia a few weeks back and we are still battling diarrhea issues. Its Monsoon season here in Arizona so I'm thinking he may have drank some stagnant standing water left over from one of the recent storms. Anyways stool sample test confirm it was giardia. The meds the vet provided pretty much solved the problem and we were happy because my wife and I didnt have to wake up all hours of the night to clean his kennel from the explosive diarrhea. Anyways during that time I figured I would switch his food from Blue Buffalo to Fromm, well that didnt help much and a week later hes back to having diarrhea just not as explosive and liquidy as he did with giardia. 2nd lab tests come back negative so I feed our pup the bland diet of ground beef and rice. That seemed to help somewhat, he did have a harder stool but it was still mash potato like texture. So the past few days I started to add organic pumpkin to his Fromm kibble. That doesnt seem to help because last night he took a dump by the back door at 9:00 pm, had a diarrhea accident again round midnight in his crate that my wife and I had to clean, and then another small diarrhea episode in his crate again around 2:00 am, around 4:30 AM I wake up to get ready for work and I take him outside to pee and poop. Well he did both and his 4th diarrhea of the evening was still mashed potato like and not solid. Plenty of orange from the pumpkin though. We are all out of answers and its getting very frustrating because my wife and I both work and we are cleaning diarrhea mess off the dog ( my wife ) and I'm cleaning and bleaching the crate liner. The dog is potty trained we didnt have this issue until he had giardia. The vet is now recommending probiotics so today after work I will pick them up and see how it goes.. 2 weeks of cleaning diarrhea mess is starting to piss us off..I manage to deal with it on the weekends because we can monitor him 24/7 but we work and the kids go to school so he has to be in his cage. If your 4 month old has giardia you should probably take it to the vet so they can give you the meds. The meds stop it almost immediately.
