Does anyone have experience with recurring Guardia?  We seem to clear it up for a few months and then one of our dogs gets the runny stinky poo which has a slimy look about it and sometimes some mucus.  We send it off for analysis and it comes back positive for Guardia.

A week ago another sample was confirmed positive so we followed up with a 6 day treatment (3 days plus another 3 days just in case) for all my dogs with Panacur.  At the end sent samples of faeces to lab and it has come back positive for Guardia so the strain we have must be resistant to the Panacur (or they are reinfecting from the environment somehow).  We have no stagnant water or anything obvious that could be causing it.

We have sourced some special cleaner called "Superkill" that kills Guardia and must be left in contact with floors and beds for 20 minutes and have cleaned the kennels, floors, walls, beds etc with this every day for the last 2 months.  The vetbed is washed in a washing machine on a hospital MRSA setting.

I have spent a long time today trawling the internet and have seen Metronidolsole (flaggl) mentioned quite a lot and also prozyme.  Has anyone experience with recurring Guardia and any suggestions to get rid of it?

Many thanks.

Only ever had Giardia confirmed in one young pup.  I put every dog in the house on Panacur for 7 days.  I've never had it back.  I clean everything with Virkon.

The problem with giardia is that the dogs reinfect themselves very quickly, so by the time they are on the last day of treatment of Panacur they are already infected again.   Metronidazole is the preferred treatment usually for 10 days, it alters the DNA of the protozoa so that they cannot reproduce, so even if they swallow the protozoa it does not get the chance to multiply, you only need 5 protoza to cause symptoms.  You could then follow that with a course of Panacur (speak to your vet first)

I am sure that you are practising strict hygiene, but it is such an opportunist protozoa, it could be on their feet, it could be passed from one to the other when they lick around their bottoms and then lick each other, on their toys, it could be on the grass, or they could be picking it up if they are eating rabbit, bird, sheep droppings etc.

Some schools of thought think that once a dog is infected it can lie dormant in the system until the dog is under stress.

It is possible to clear your dogs of the condition but you must clear any faeces up immediately, and what you are doing with the Superkill will ensure that the home/kennel environment is safe.   Just sounds like you need metronidazole and a longer course of treatment.

Good luck with it and let us know how it goes.   Have had it in my kennels and it nearly drove me mad, took ages to get on top of it, I became quite paranoid about it.   Now all is fine and we have not had a recurrence in the last few years.   But I still pick all faeces up immediately, our breed is renowned for eating undesirable but tasty morsels!!!

I have had giardia ... not very pleasant! I also have a dog from a litter who all had giardia. I told the vet what it was ... once you've had it you recognise it in others - whatever the species!!  :-(
Could it be that it's actually being brought to your property by a wild animal that then re-infects your lot?
I do recall coming across an article on the internet a few years ago, when I was researching giardia in dogs, about a big outbreak of giardia in one of the Guide Dogs for the Blind breeding kennels. Can't remember the link now, but if you can hunt that down there might be something in there that helps.  Have you also made sure that the walls of your kennels have been cleansed?