Hello Everyone, I am looking for some advice please. We have a 9 week old Lab whom we got at 8 weeks from a breeder, (both parents and working dogs). They lived on a farm and were reared in the conservatory with 24 hour access to the outside area (enclosed). All was ok when we first brought him home last Tuesday BUT he started with diarrhea on friday, we researched it all and thought it could be stress with leaving litter (10 puppies). It got worse and we took him to the vets yesterday as he was due to have his injections. I took a poo sample with me and the vet examined it and said it was very smelly/mucousy. It was decided that he couldn't have him injections as it could make him worse. He was given digestion support food (wet medical food, he usually has dry) and he was given Pro-Kolin + (paste to take twice a day to stop diarheear). The vet thinks it could be Giardia. He is also having a 5 day course of worming treatment too. The problem is he' had 3 doses of paste and diarrhea hasn' stopped yet and since coming home from the vers yesterday and stayng food & treatment his behaviour has drastically changed. He is acting like a dog possessed, crying/howling/barking lunging at everyone and snapping our faces, if we leave his eye sight he is hysterical crying. We are literally sat on the setee with our feet up so he can' attack us anymore. This is not the behaviour we have had the previous 6 days. We have tried putting him in his crate to calm him, trying to stoke him etc but nothing worked. Has anyone had a similar experience with this?
Hi and welcome, Congratulations on your new puppy but sorry to hear he's so ill, poor little guy. My first puppy also came down with giardia a few days after I brought him home. They get dehydrated very fast and it can be deadly. If it is giardia (strange that they didn't confirm that for you during your visit), he likely needs IV fluids and IV nutritional support. Bottom line: If he were mine, I'd take him immediately back to the vet, even if you have to go to the night time emergency vet. Giardia in a small pup can go south very quickly. Please let us know how you and he get on, wishing for a fast recovery for him...
Have you called your vet and explained what’s happening with your pup? My boy had a terrible reaction to one dewormer.
Hi and thank you for your reply. The vet said she didn' know if it was that and said that because he is eating and drinking well that was a good sign. She said that if this paste doesn't stop the diarrhea she would need to send a sample of poo away to do further research. (We spent £118 at the vets yesterday) and we really can't afford any more huge vet bills. To cut a long story short, we have a disabled son and we bought the dog to help him and I am hoping to train him as a therapy dog to help calm my son. When we went to view him at the breeders i asked the breeder when he was wormed and said that I thought it was 2, 4, 6 &8 weeks and she said it depends on what you use! When we went to collect him I asked her again and said I need to know when he's due to be wormed and she just said " worm him when he has his injections". That should have set alarm bells ringing! I feel so annoyed with the breeder (although I'm sure it' not fully her fault).
Ah, OK... I didn't understand that he was eating and drinking, sorry for being alarmist. Although I'm a worrier, so I'd probably still take him in. Can't help myself! I don't know about the worming (I can't remember that long ago!) but the giardia really may not be. My breeder was super cautious - the vet's only guess was bird poo that fell into the enclosed puppy area and then my pup gobbled it up. He had pea gravel in his tummy too, so I guess he was kind of a little hoover. As you're in the UK, do you have insurance? It was useless for me in the US many years ago, but many people around here wouldn't be without it.
Thank you for your reply. I couldn't insure him until I had registered him at the vet and the vet couldn' see him until yesterday (5 days after we brought him home). The vet said they would have to register him as having diarrhea and said I would have to declare it to insurance company as they wouldn't cover the cost of this.
Our first puppy in ‘96 had diarrhea after we had her 2 days. We went to the vet and she was given iv medication and fluids. She had eaten cat poop....we hadn’t seen this. She was in our own garden and we didn’t know the neighborhood cats did their pooing in our garden...after 1 day we could pick her up at the vets again. She was lively as could be!
Omg our neighbours have cats too! I' going to mention this to our vet tomorrow. How did you stop their cats from pooing in your garden?
Hi, just wanted to say I hope your little guy is doing better tomorrow, sounds like it's been a very stressful time for all of you... I hope you all get some sleep tonight, and that you get some better news from the vet tomorrow. With regard to the insurance, if you can't be sure you would be able to cover large vet bills, then pet insurance really would be a good idea. You won't be able to reclaim this lot of bills, but if anything happens again (and dogs do get ill, and injure themselves, just like people do) then it would be good to have coverage.
Thank you for your reply. The vet has registered us for 4 weeks free pet I stance with pet plan but has states it wont cover this. So we have 4 weeks to find another one but we will defiantly be insuring him
When we gave him a Milbemax he got very itchy, face and ears swelled up, and a few hours later had a grand mal seizure - he was about 1.5/2 years old at the time. He is epileptic and at the time was not yet medicated. He has taken Drontal and Mediworm with no known ill effect. He is now medicated for epilepsy, but we avoid Milbemax, only use Mediworm. Each dog I assume is different and might respond differently to different drugs (or have no ill response). I have read here on the forum of puppies behaving crazy after deworming. You are administering a poison, so I assume one can expect bad side effects. (Some worms are dangerous, too, so you have to deworm - catch 22!)
Hopefully it’s the cause of diarrhea and not the diarrhea itself that will be precluded. Dogs get diarrhea for so many reasons!
I couldn’t. Just chase them away as soon as you see one. And a dog in the house means that cats are cautious to come into the garden.
How’s the puppy doing? Oh how I wish she hadn’t told you it could be Giardia unless she was 100 % sure, why cause you needless worry? Maybe we can think of something else like His food. Are you on the same food given to him as his breeder? Whenever I changed his food he’d get the runs. If I can remember correctly, mine had the runs for a few days too, he was fine. I’m a worrier too and whenever my dog had the slightest illness, I was off to the Vets. Hopefully, yours will give you a cost break or a bundle plan where you get so many visits plus all vaccinations for a cheaper price then if you were to pay for everything separately like mined did. Ask her if she has one. Keeping your puppy in my thoughts and hope to hear the good news very soon
Hi. My girl had diorrhea a lot as a pup. I used the prokolin but also put her on boiled chicken and rice. It worked out she was allergic to wheat, but it took months to work this out. Hopefully the vet has seen him and he is improving. Diorrhea can also be caused by over feeding. What food is he on and how often does he eat in a day?
when we took our 8 wk old Monday to vet we got another dose of de-wormer. she said it could cause loose stool and if does should clear up in 3-4 days. might just be from that.
