I have a collie cross for four months and she has still got the runs. we've changed her food from bakers complete then to gilberts hypo and now we are using james well beloved recommended by the vets and bio yogurt but she still got the runs and bleeding and a temp 104 but the weird thing is that she is growing she seems healthy and shes not under weight.they keep giving her antibiotics which stops the bleeding but just for seven days then its back to the usual,we've taken stool sample and we are waiting for the results im keeping my fingers crossed this will give us some answers. Unfortunatley we have seven children next door and its hard to explain she can't eat crisps and sweets,we have tried to keep them away from her but its hard and im afraid if we can't solve the problem we are going to have to find her another home where they can keep her diet strick but my little boy loves her to bits and i don't want to break his heart.

Try walking her on a different route. It may be that she has picked up some infection on her usual route. The antibiotics may not have the same impact if she is being re-infected. Just a thought. A friends pup had the same problem for weeks, antibiotics worked for duration but the sqirts and blood started again when finished. My friend changed her route and touch wood, everything has been ok.

Kay

Bit of a problem here, infection will cause the problem but so will antibiotics, for a different reason but with the same results. Be as fastidious about the house and yard as you can washing down and disinfect to try and stop the re-infection. Keep the yoghurt going as that helps replace the intestinal bugs that the antibiotics kill. As your vet has taken a sample to see what the bug is that is causing the problem, I would wait for the results, no point in continuing with a medication that is not doing the job. Oh! and stop changing the food stick to what you are using now. Can't understand why they do not give you a 21 day course of the antibiotics, perhaps they will when the tests are back.

I can't quite understand the seven children next door bit. You can't control what they feed her? Does she live outside then?

That bit had not registered Snoopy, would say if the dog has such bad problems she should not go anywhere without supervision, not even the back garden.

Yep completely agree Jackie.

she has a run outside but the wall is low and the kids next door were feeding her,didn't know they were untill we saw them,we explained that we thought she was sensitive to certain foods so we gave them james beloved dog biscuits so when they were tempted to feed this would be ok,but caught the youngest two feeding her crisps and chocolate. We have moved her away from there now and built a new run also when the children are out playing we keep her in doors just in case they sneek over and feed her( they are a little bit cheeky like that).

I pretty sure its not that because when we had her we kept her in for three weeks while she had her injections and this started before thanks anyway for your help.

Could be Campo.  that needs a longer dose of antibiotics but does not appear in every "sample" so if nothing shows up it can be worth doing another one from a particuarly bad "batch"

Might also be something as simple as you are giving her too much to eat - I know this sounds silly but if there is too much the body won't digest it and it goes straight though.

we feed her three times a day we don't weigh it but the bowl is a meduim size bowl and its filled just over half full, iv'e been speaking to a friend and they suggested puting her on butchers tripe  she had four dogs and she gave them bakers complete and it gave them the runs and one of the dogs had a bleed to and the thing was that muppet was on butchers tripe and we went and put her on bakers complete because pepole keep telling us that dried food was the best thing to give her,could it be that simple just to put her back on it or is changing her diet again going to make her worse.

Really would stop swapping her food about till you have sorted the problem, the food does sound too much, weigh it, give her about 3/4 of the suggested amount spread over the 3 meals and no tit bits and under no circumstances chocolate or milk

I would certainly get her off the Bakers and put her onto a good quality dry complete such as Burns or JWB perhaps.  Or failing that Naturediet which is vacuum packed meat, rice and vegetables.  Bakers has colourings, salt and sugar none of which are necessary let alone healthy.

Thought the vet had put this dog on James Wellbeloved, did I miss something, may be as it seems this dogs food is changed so often I am not too surprised it has a sensitive tummy.

she is still on james beloved, test results just come back its not her food thats the problem, she's tested positive for guarda which is picked up from stale water and sheep . taking her to the vets this afternoon for her treatment, keeping fingers crossed that this is going to solve the problem.

Unfortunately Giardia can be contracted from many sources, the main one being contaminated water and direct contact with infected animals.  People get it too although I believe it is not at the moment regarded as a zoonosis?

hi tohme , do you know if she will totally recover with treatment .

yes, but depending on where she caught it from she can be reinfected at any time........................

Giardia is a tough one to get rid of - but knowing it's giardia is very positive in terms of a complete cure.  If you do a web search you will find a lot of information about it, for people and dogs.

Dogs can contract it from eating rubbish/spoiled foods , so I would really make sure those kids next door are not giving her anything.  They could well have given her one piece of something very spoiled - and that was it.   Walking her on a different route is a good idea, as suggested already. Also, do not let her drink out of streams or ponds if you can help it - they can be prime sources of giardia from rotting material (dead animal/fishbodies - yuch!).

Stacey

Thanks stacey about the web search it was very helpful,unfortunatley my vets didn't know much about the condition,its was just lucky that one of the top vets for cats and dogs in the country is related to my brother-in-law and he suggested to have her tested for giardia, otherwise we would have thought she just had a sensitive tummy apparently, this is the first case the practice has ever come across and if we had not insisted to take a test for this i don't think we would ever made her better. now the've told us they have a few similar cases which they are now going to check for giardia so at least they are aware of the problem. (got to go know bad girls has started) muppet.

my muppet is better now she's much more settled and hasn't had a bout of runs for three weeks she solid as a rock! thanks to everyone who tried to help ive learnt alot from this web site .