[BuddyRoo]

Assuming there's nothing in any lab or test that is indicating a problem, how do we stop loose stools?

I'm in liquid poo hell right now (again).

Kaopectate is the only thing that has seemed to make a difference and all it does is give us a little more time. A bit of a "plug" if you will.

So....seeing that we've had others inquiring too...let's put 'em in a list.

We have pumpkin.

Probios

What else?

[Jumpin_Horses]

check this out.. I know its human, but, you may be interested in this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8536874

[lilitiger2]

NOt sure what species we are discussing!!! But...with my kitties, I do use canned pumpkin (both for loose and plugged). My mom uses a bit of metamucil. Depending on how long it had been runny, I would check for parasites as well. My 18lb'er suddenly had problems and was given an antibiotic (for a very short time) and I think put on A/D (with pumpkin) which he liked and the poop firmed up again. I have also heard people have really good luck with the probios if the issue was chronic.

[Simkie]

Have you tried immodium? Not good long term, but should help right now.

I'd consider a better probiotic. Probios is pretty lean. Look for a high quality product that has multiple strains. I have given my dogs Multidophilus 12, which is a people product. You should be able to find it in the fridge at your local Whole Foods or equivalent.

There's also a clay product for critters, similar to bio sponge for horses. Damned if I can remember what it's called, but your vets should be familiar with it. ETA: it's Endosorb

Have you ever been able to rule out a stubborn C. diff infection?

[BuddyRoo]

Simke, endosorb is on my list. I did an RX probiotic for about 30 days. We did a culture, doesn't look like cdiff. And he wasn't on abx previous to the onset of issues so unlikely anyway. But we did test. Because well...at this point, we're testing for everything.

Liltiger, yeah, we've been all through the parasite thing, and about every OTHER possible thing. So now I'm supposed to just wait this out while we do a food trial. But I am not a fan of cleaning up liquid defecation everyday. And trust me, I take my dogs out a lot. It's not that. It's just that when he has to go, he cannot hold it. Mostly overnight. Even if I get up a few times per night, it's not good enough. He'll wake up and just have to go RIGHT THEN. And it's liquid.

But I know other folks have had trouble too.

So we have pumpkin.

Probiotics.

Tylan and metronidazole.

Endosorb.

[Seriously_Hunter]

I didn't read all the responses but RICE, plain ol'white rice. Cook it in beef or chicken broth

Vet recommended I remove actual dog food and feed strictly rice for 24-48 hours and then mix the rice and dog food. Worked like a charm (even if my snotty Rottie hated it!)

Plain yogurt works as well, a tbs a day

[Simkie]

Is there some reason you're not willing to use a short run of immodium? It's certainly saved my floors (and sanity) several times.

Have you done a course of panacur? My vet says that it is soothing to the gut and we have used it from time to time.

I suppose you could also add in one of the pectin anti-diarrheals. I've not had much luck with them on their own, but it might be one more tool in the box for you.

[SquishTheBunny]

So I can now officially join this group. My cat just left a pile of chocolate pudding in my bathtub. I COULD start him on meds.... or I could punt him outside..... hmmm.....

[BuddyRoo]

Is there some reason you're not willing to use a short run of immodium? It's certainly saved my floors (and sanity) several times.

Have you done a course of panacur? My vet says that it is soothing to the gut and we have used it from time to time.

I suppose you could also add in one of the pectin anti-diarrheals. I've not had much luck with them on their own, but it might be one more tool in the box for you.

Simke, I'm doing kaopectate, like immodium and have been for a few weeks. A different brand name, but same thing far as I know. It does help a bit. I took a few days off to see where we were at and here we are....liquid. The kaopectate buys me a few hours a day.

Yes, done panacur.

We've pretty much done every test. I'm just buying time now on a food trial and trying to think of any other stuff that might help firm things up so we can make it through the night.

[BuddyRoo]

So I can now officially join this group. My cat just left a pile of chocolate pudding in my bathtub. I COULD start him on meds.... or I could punt him outside..... hmmm.....

I know you won't punt him so.....

Welcome! We have booze. That at least makes you not care so much.

[lilitiger2]

I guess I might be temporarily carpetign the house in wee pads, or the oil/water pads from NAPA. I will say that when we provided hospice for an older lab from the shelter, she came with a giant bag of blue buffalo and we were definitely in chocolate pudding hell until we switched her (and can't remember what she got). Sounds like yoou are tracking things down! Metronidizole, such fun (was on that myself several times for giardia). THAT will clean you out, but not as bad as Augmentin. Anyway, good luck with the puppy! good times!!

[Simkie]

Simke, I'm doing kaopectate, like immodium and have been for a few weeks. A different brand name, but same thing far as I know. It does help a bit. I took a few days off to see where we were at and here we are....liquid. The kaopectate buys me a few hours a day.

Kaopectate and Imodium are totally different drugs. They are worlds apart and act in different ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaopectate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loperamide

Kaopectate is indicated in mild diarrhea. Imodium is a much heavier hitter.

[oliverreed]

I am in this club too, with little old lady cat Carmella. And she won't poo in the box. I go on a treasure hunt every day. Have had every test done as well and using a probiotic. Sometimes it's firm, sometimes it is chocolate pudding. And STINKY.

[Long Spot]

Endosorb is FABULOUS stuff. And when needed in addition, Metronidazole. But it really all depends on what's really going on. I know you are trying like all get out to figure that out.

It's tough. My old lady when she gets an upset stomach not only does the pudding poo, but it's usually laced with jelly/ bloody mucus. Figuring out she had food allergies has gone a long way in fixing that. The human toddler who likes to feed her his stuff when I'm not looking has thrown a wrench in the balanced tummy works for her. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, OH BOY.

I'm sorry BRoo. I know you've had a lot of stressful changes. Do you think it's possible pup is picking up on the stress of the move and all that?

Give doggy a scritch from LS.

[wendy]

things I have found to work to stop up temporary diarrhea:

Immodium
Feeding cooked liver
Feeding extra-boney raw meaty bones (like a chicken back with most of the meat removed)


things I have not found to be very helpful:

pumpkin
the "bland" diet of rice/boiled meat
Pepto-bismal


things I have found to cure "undiagnosed" recurrent/prolonged bouts of diarrhea:

treating for giardia
switch to a raw diet
feed a course of probiotics
be very watchful for goose poop and keeping the dogs from eating it
elimination/challenge diet to identify offending food ingredient, and then avoiding it in future


Buddyroo, If I were you, I'd seriously consider either trying a raw diet, or embarking on a formal elimination/challenge diet plan. Many people report their critters with strange diarrhea problems mysteriously just "Get better" when fed raw- I have a dog who would have "stress diarrhea" at dog trials, until I started feeding raw to this dog while at trials (Stella and Chewy dehydrated patties), and then oddly enough no more stress diarrhea, even though the stress didn't change, just the diet.
A formal elimination/challenge diet takes some time and dedication, but if you suspect a food intolerance/allergy problem, it's the only way to go. I don't think this is your problem, because the dog is still exhibiting diarrhea on z/d, right? you might need to stay on z/d for some weeks, though, if the gut is really irritated from "the mystery substance", it might need time to heal after withdrawl of the offending agent.

[Claddagh]

So sorry that your dog is still going through this. Poor pup!

I have a couple of suggestions, based on experiences with our own dogs. First, I can totally sympathize with your situation as we went through it (although nowhere near as severe and long term as yours) with our Australian Shepherd. She had chronic diarrhea for which our vet couldn't pinpoint a cause. She referred us to a large specialty hospital but had us try one last thing before making the appointment. It was to put the dog on a high fibre diet (I know it sounds counterproductive for chronic diarrhea symptoms and our vet laughed when recommending it - but IT WORKED!)

This was many years ago and I cannot remember what the food was called exactly, but it was one of the Prescription Diet formulas (I know, I know - total garbage food generally, but hey, it worked miracles for our girl who lived a very healthy life for many, many years eating just this food).

Second suggestion - try another antidiarrheal medicine. Simkie is right - Kaopectate and Immodium are totally different drugs. My vets have been recommending Immodium for years now although they do recommend Pepto Bismol on occassion too. Kaopectate used to be on the recommend list but the formula was changed a few years ago so it is no longer the same medicine as it used to be. But if you really want to use the Kaopectate instead of Immodium, many vets recommend Pepto Bismol instead because it seems to work better than Kaopectate even though the active ingredients are the same drugs.

Probiotics - through personal experience with one of my present dogs, I have found that probiotics are great - BUT the brand is very important! I have had NO luck with Probios at all (did nothing and my dog wouldn't even eat food with it in it).

I tried a couple of other probiotics with no results either (some very good brands). My dog's problem was that she wouldn't eat. I had to literally feed her one tiny kibble at a time and physically open her mouth and put a spoonful of canned (or people) food in and then hope she's swallow it!) And this is a 56 lb. dog so feeding this way was a real chore! All of her health tests came back normal - saying that she was a very healthy pup (except that she wouldn't eat!).

I finally found another probiotic - Dr. Mercola's Probiotics for Pets - and it made all the difference. After about a week my dog began eating her food like a normal dog! No more problems whatsoever - we call her an eating machine now. I know without a doubt that it is the Mercola probiotics that have *fixed* whatever was wrong because when I ran out of them and couldn't get more right away because they were on back-order, my dog stopped eating again and we were back to hand feeding everything just to keep her alive! She wasn't even interested in eating her very favorite people foods! This is when I tried other brands of probiotics and got zero results.

When I finally go another supply of Mercola my dog once again became the eating machine we joke about now. I learned my lesson though - I now keep several jars of Mercola on hand so I won't be affected by any back-order nonsense ever again. I absolutely swear by this particular probiotic! It has worked miracles for us.

I guess that's all I've got for now (I would have posted sooner but we just got our internet back after being down for over a week, so was only browsing a little with the iPhone and going over on data usage anyway! grrrr). Anyway, I hope you find the answer to help your dog - this can't be any fun for him or for you!

[SkipHiLad4me]

I think I posted this on one of your OT day threads but I'll post again:

I highly recommend giving the probiotic VSL#3 a shot:
http://vsl3.com/

It's made for people as a treatment for ulcerative colitis and IBS. I use it in my dog to help treat her liver disease. They ship it to you on ice and it has to stay in the fridge. It's a much more powerful probiotic than the Probios from the vet. The liver disease Yahoo group folks that I follow told me not to waste my time with the Probios because it just doesn't do what the VSL#3 can. You can order the capsules cheapest I think and you'd probably use 1-2 per day for your dog. My Boston is 20lbs and she's just big enough that the Yahoo group folks recommended that I could get by with giving her 1 of the capsules per day. Most of the other dogs they work with are toy breeds so they have to purchase the powder packets and use very small amounts of it.

[bdj]

It doesn't sound like the ideal course of action in your case, BuddyRoo, but the first thing I do when any of my dogs gets loose is to fast them for 24 hours - I refer to it as "rebooting the digestive system". Water is OK, but no food, even when they give me the sad eyes, and everyone else is still getting fed. (I'm assuming an otherwise healthy dog, of course.)

As far as probiotics, I keep a bottle of Probios around, and use it when our normal routine is upset (the weekend of an agility trial, for example) as more of a preventative. I don't know that it helps, but it's inexpensive and fits under the umbrella of "won't hurt, might help" (and all of my dogs think it tastes good enough to eat out of hand). If I want to use something better/broader, my vet recommended Culturelle, which is easily obtained at most pharmacies (and since it's a human supplement, you can take it yourself, should the need arise).

[wendy]

you might want to consider stopping all of the antibiotics, too, while you beef up the probiotics- many antibiotics, including metronidazole, can cause diarrhea as a side effect.

[BuddyRoo]

Thanks all. I will pick up some immodium.

Wendy, he's off all meds at this point. I can pick up more probiotics and the endosorb.

The food trial is Z/D. They said I have to give it 4-6 weeks. We're about 2 weeks in. I really don't want to switch up food again til we've given it some time. In theory, if it's truly a food allergy situation, the z/d should be about as hypoallergenic as it comes.

Long Spot, I don't think it's stress. I thought that at first--3 mos ago when hubby and kids moved out. But I don't think so now. he's happy, seems well adjusted, etc.

I'm re-reading all of your posts...just wanted to respond to the highlights.

I'm off to the store shortly, will get some immodium.