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Need Advice PLEASE for my sick Scarlett

4K views 32 replies 8 participants last post by  performanceknls 
#1 ·
Hi there. My name is Amanda, and my boyfriend recently took in an APBT, Scarlett, though I am the one who takes care of her. Financially, we were not prepared for a sick dog, but my boyfriend's father's friend had her up until she was 11 months old, and asked us to then take her because he said his other pit was going after her so he'd have to keep her locked up. Something didn't sound right, and as soon as we got her (mid-July), she had diarrhea. He claimed it was from switching her foods so we tried giving her boiled chicken and white rice, and over a week the diarrhea became bloody. We brought her to the vet (the guy we got her from had no papers to supply us with, although he promised them at first) where she was tested for all kinds of parasites and put on metrazonidale- however you spell it- with no results. back to the vet twice after and still nothing. Just an expensive RX food for gstroentretic care and no answers. The only success we've had was when she was on Tylosin and her poop was more soft serve like and yellow, with little bits of blood. Sometimes she'll bend down to poop, and just little bits of blood will come out. Tylosin helped the most out of everything, but we still never saw a solid poop from her. Her blood tests only showed a high white blood cell count. She ran out of Tylosin 4 days ago and now has uncontrollable, explosive diarrhea. She never went in the house but now she'll just look at me and out it comes. She has gas where bits of poop come out, and she's gotten sick all over the bedding in her crate, which was never a problem before either. I'll take her out at 11pm and then at 6am when we wake up there's diarrhea all over her crate. We've spent so much at the vet and are trying to now fix this on our own. I recently ordered from petco, In Clover Fresh Digest Daily Intestinal Aid for Dogs and NaturVet Naturals All-in-One Dog & Cat Daily Supplement. they will be here today and I'm hoping they'll help, but I just don't know what else to do. She's such a happy dog, never any vomitting, and from my research, I believe she has IBS but I know I'm not a vet. My boyfriend is threatening to get rid of her and I am so scared. She is a beautiful, sweet natured dog but being so sick I'm afraid she'll just end up being put down. I know we need to go to the vet and I'm saving up for a trip to another one, believe me I feel like a real ******* for not being able to take her, but please share any advice anyone has or similar situations you've experienced. Thanks for your time
 

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#3 ·
Thank you for reading. The vet gave me Purina EN Gastroenteric about a month ago, and the condition hasn't changed so I talked to someone at a feeds store who recommended EVO Turkey and Chicken no whole grains. She gave me a small bag on the house so I'm trying to mix it in little by little with the vet food. I also give her some white rice before a meal, and as treats I mix plain yogurt with water and freeze into cubes.
 
#4 ·
I sent a message to a friend who is very good trying to figure out things like this. She is currently still a vet tech and has a great amount of knowledge. She should be chiming in soon. I do want to comment on the food change though. Your dog could be intolerant of grain and it sounds like you have been giving grain. In this case you might want to stop giving rice and anything with grain in it. Look at the Evo and see if it is grain free if so you can try that and maybe a dog like your a raw diet might be best. I have had plenty of students had dogs who never had hard poop and it sounds just like your case. Switching over to a raw diet was the only thing that put the dog back in balance. Since nothing real medical could be found I would lean more to this. Her user name is geisthexe
and she should be along to help soon and give some things to try. You might get a lot of advice with this being on the open forum but if I were you do not try too many things at once. Try what geisthexe suggests and go from there. I would stop all grains though immediately.
 
#9 ·
I had a dog with "bloody diahrea" once, and it was due to kidney damage...
He had eaten chocolate...

But make sure to keep plenty of water around, as dehydration is related to diahrea.

But since the issue has been so long, if kidney failure were likely,
it'd probably happened by now.
 
#10 ·
I would also suggest pedialyte in the water to keep her hydrated.

Poor thing. Bruno had something similar to this when I got him from the shelter. It took a month to clear it all up. I had to give him these giant horse pills and a liquid medicing via saringe everyday for that month.
I sure hope your girl recovers!
 
#12 ·
Hey, Scarlett. Sorry to hear about your puppy. But why don't we try getting back to "nature". Dogs need bacteria to digest their food (good bacteria). Since she somewhat responded to Tylosin, which increases a bacteria called enterobacter, it sounds like she may be suffering from bacterial imbalance (too much bad, not enough good). Just a thought, without seeing her. Yogurt is good, but a dog would have to eat like 10-20 cartons to get enough live culture to make a difference. There is a great new product made by Iams Co. called Prostora that is fantastic at regulating the G.I. tract.

Here's a link to one online place that has it.

Iams Veterinary Formula Prostora Max (15 Tabs)

Otherwise, you would have to have more tests done (bloodwork, x-rays, biopsy) but it would be easy to try the probiotics (Prostora) first.

Hope that helps!
 
#15 ·
Hey, Scarlett. Sorry to hear about your puppy. But why don't we try getting back to "nature". Dogs need bacteria to digest their food (good bacteria). Since she somewhat responded to Tylosin, which increases a bacteria called enterobacter, it sounds like she may be suffering from bacterial imbalance (too much bad, not enough good). Just a thought, without seeing her. Yogurt is good, but a dog would have to eat like 10-20 cartons to get enough live culture to make a difference. There is a great new product made by Iams Co. called Prostora that is fantastic at regulating the G.I. tract.

Here's a link to one online place that has it.

Iams Veterinary Formula Prostora Max (15 Tabs)

Otherwise, you would have to have more tests done (bloodwork, x-rays, biopsy) but it would be easy to try the probiotics (Prostora) first.

Hope that helps!
This is why you rock! Thanks, BD!
 
#16 · (Edited)
Yes this is correct I have a nephew who has it but they also do blood panel work to check inflammation levels c-reacive protein as well. If their is inflammation in the digestive track they can prescribe steroids to bring down the swelling which causes the bleeding and explosive diarrhea. There is no cure for Crohn's it's controlled by diet and medication. But I would be looking in this direction at this point.
 
#20 ·
I'm not convinced that Crohn's is a true condition in dogs as it is in people. We have some enteritis conditions that may act like Crohn's, but is not necessarily identical. I don't know if many DVM's are testing for C-reactive other than for research or at universities, but there may be some. More likely to test for TLI. But CRP would corroborate a diagnosis of IBD.
 
#22 ·
:goodpost:I suspect it could be inflammation within the digestive tract wether it be inflammatory bowel disease or Crohn's or something that mimics it. Because of everything that her dog has gone through at this point IMO it's time to start looking outside the box. I am not a vet so I will not argue with you but I do know that through exp you have to sometimes take control of your health and your pet's health if your spending lot's of time at the vet and the problem is not getting solved it's time to start looking deeper into more rarer conditions that most vet's would not think to look for.
 
#23 ·
Sadie, I was just saying I don't think Crohn's is a recognized disease in veterinary medicine.

About the Prostora. The bacteria in there are canine-specific bacteria, and they have an actual amount (I think 15 billion) that are in each tablet. It is just supposed to work better, but you can used Acidophilus/bifidus from a health food store.
 
#30 ·
Hey thanks everyone for your advice! I ended up bringing Scarlett to a different vet on Friday because she threw up, and that never happened before. The vet was awesome, she came in and sat down on the floor with Scarlett and pet her and let Scarlett lick her face and everything! She stayed on the floor for an hour and answered a lot of my questions. She suspects it's an allergy, and the blood was a result of colitis. Since Scarlett's still happy and healthy-looking she doesn't think she's suffering any deficiencies and prescribed a simple diet. Her poop is starting to look better and the bleeding happened only once yesterday after straining, so I'm feeling much more hopeful.
 
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