My parents have a golden who has diarrhea one day and is fine the next. I hate to be graphic but the poo starts to come out quite solid but then is soft and covered in mucus. He is being fed on rice and chicken and occasionally biscuits for sensitive stomachs. Dad is at his wits end. Its always this time of the year. He started with this last year and it didnt stop until August. The vet prescribed antibiotics but no diagnosis. I was wondering if anyone else has this problem. The dog is three years old.

Welcome to the forum. If there is a set pattern to when this is happening eg: April to August, then I would be looking at other factors as to what may be triggering this reaction. Are your parents doing anything different during the months of April to August? Are they walking him somewhere that they avoid from August to April? Is he swimming or have access to something that he doesn't have the rest of the year? Could there be a seasonal allergen involved?

He isnt a swimmer and is walked and excercised locally. We've racked our brains, hes not been anywhere where pesticides are used e.g farmland but mum and dad do live in a rural area. He is exercised at the local park and does a lot of road walking...just like any other dog I suppose. Dad even got rid of the compost heap last year just in case it was that!....I'm stumped!

Did it stop completely or did he have episodes in between ?

Does he also just get rice and chicken all the time and what is his weight like ?

Lucy

Lucy he didnt have any bouts in between, theyve tried him on different foods since he was a puppy but because hes a little hyperactive a behaviourist recommended fresh cooked chicken and rice so they stuck with it. Occasionally he has fish but it does make him loose. His weight is spot on according to the vet.

I must admit I am going to try Min my eldest Lab on Naturediet as she has colitis. It is manageable but still has her moments. I cannot feasibily do barf and so I feel this is the next best thing.

There is a thread active at the moment re this on the feeding forum so have a look.

Regards

Lucy

My oldest dog, who is nine now used to have a very similar problem when he was about two years old. It was put down to colitis. The vets insited we gave him an expensive prescribed diet, however,I seemed to have solved the problem by keeping him on a very low protein diet. He has dried food and the lowest protein content I could find and where possible a food for sensitive stomachs.

Sonny was like this when we first had him. I solved it practically overnight by feeding raw! Started him off on raw minced chicken and never had tummy problems after that.
Now we have Murphy, he's always been on raw apart from when we first bought him home and he's had no tummy problems to speak of.
Natural live yoghurt is great for upset tums..the one with the bugs in it!:D

TTFN

Ruth

I agree with rooney, get him off this awful diet. The number of people that use this forum to complain about commercial dogs foods and the runs, I can't spell diarrhoea, is amazing. I feed a full BARF diet and we have no upset tummies in our house. However, homoeopathy can also help. Give Arsenicum album 6x every 15 minutes until the diarrhoea stops, this is widely available in the high street. However for what you have discribed Mercurius sublimatus corrosivus 12x is recommended, but I don't know how widely available this is. If you look in yellow pages I'm sure you will find a homoeopath in your area who can help. Antibiotics can cause a great deal of harm because it also wipes out the good bugs in the stomach and your vet giving them blindly does not help, live yoghurt will help replace them.
You know what they say diarrhoea is hereditary, it runs in the jeans!

Awful diet!!!

That is just your opinion. I feed my dogs with a commercial dry food and have done for the last 15 years, they don't have upset tums either, except if they pick up a gastro bug, which any dog can do.

They are in fine condition, very fit and in my opinion if it ain't broke don't fix it.

HI Lady Dazzle,

I do agree that if your dogs are thriving on their food then stick with it. Murphy was weaned onto Oscars and did very well on it. Had he continued to eat it, he would be having it now.
It is true though that some dogs just don't do well on dried food and the raw seems to suit them better for whatever reason. Every dog is different and I know that there are some dogs that can't tolerate raw.

TTFN

Ruth

Too right Jayne, my Dandie had colitis as a pup, so bad I doubted she would make it to an adult, that was on the then fashionable puppy diet of mince, scrambled eggs, rice pudding etc. remember that? :) Anyway, we found she thrived for a couple of years on Chappie till I could stand the smell no more and discovered she did equally well on Beta. She has just had her 14th birthday and has been fading a little just lately but my wonderfull vet has just completed a 4 week course of evil pharmaceutical injections on her ;):) and whereas a month ago I thought we might loose her in days we seem to have her back to how she was 6 months/year ago. Oh the wonders of modern science :) heres hoping in lasts. In return she worked a little terrier magic on him, he is fairly new to the practice and had not met our Nellie before. On the first visit I noticed him snatch his hand away when she turned her head towards him but on our final visit this evening he hugged her and said "Ah Nellie" after her jab :D

If a dog is fed on a natural diet they just don't pick up gastro bugs, their gut can handle it. How did dogs survive before supermarkets and commercial dog food? Do we know what chemicals are put in such foods to attract the dogs to eat it? I've kept dogs all my life and have fed commercial but these two with me now are by far the healthiest I've ever had. The proof of the pudding as they say. No smelly droppings, no smelly breath, clean teeth, no breaking wind just some of the benefits, and their coats shine like glass.

I have no problem with you feeding raw or me feeding commercial dry.

What I do have a problem with is you saying that awful food!! that is only your opinion not a fact.

A lot people who read this board are pet owners and to be honest I would prefer them to feed a commercial dried food, rather than what dogs use to be fed and some cases still are including leftovers, nowadays this could consist of any kind of junk type food. At least with a dried food you can be sure they are getting a balanced diet.

I personally have no intention of feeding Barf or raw to my dogs as they are very greedy eaters and will sometimes choke on kibble so god knows what they would do with a whole chicken wing. In fact I was told the other day that friend of mine lost a young puppy of my breed by it choking on a chicken wing.

It is horses for courses IMO and if it suits your dogs and you fine,but in some cases it may not be suitable.

Neither to I agree with your statement that a natural diet stops gastro enteritis etc. Any animal can be infected with these type of bugs whatever they are fed.

In an average commercial food wheat or rice makes up as much as 85% of the contents, 13% meat and 2% other additives, this cannot be a balanced diet. Rice and wheat is totally alien to a dog. A Barf diet does not just consist of chicken wings and leftovers. Pulped vegatables ie carrots, brocolli, lettuce, etc, eggs, cottage cheese, fish, fresh fruit and dried fruit are also fed. The fish and fruit would be naturally scavanged by dogs whilst the vegatables would be gained from the stomach of prey. The main prey of canines would be small mammals or birds. Wild dogs thrive in various parts of the world and live longer than the average pet dog.
It took me a long time to be convinced that barf was better, I was afraid of giving chicken wings. Like yours my spaniel was a greedy eater and I sat and watched him demolish a wing really enjoying it, I took one from his mouth and the bones were crushed to pulp. Now they only eat what they need. Commercial food never really seemed to 'fill' and the dogs were always looking for more, there's an awful lot of obese dogs out there.
Commercial producers will always tell you that their food is best, it's in their interest. But mother nature is doing a fine job for me.

Well if there are commercial foods that are 85%filler its not one I'm feeding and whatever else alien is in there it ain't doing mine any harm. I don't know what Jayne feeds but I have seen her dogs and I can assure you there are in stonking good nick as well. I'm sure Barf done properly can be a good diet but as has been pointed out,we hear time and again people say I feed Barf/Raw, well actually no I can't get the stuff/spend the time working it out so I feed a few chicken wings, anything the kids leave and throw in a Kelp tablet to remind myself I'm doing something alternative :) There, bit rude I know :p but I get a bit hacked off by this constant need for Barf feeders to claim it is 'the best', where does that come from? Why can't you just be secure in what you do and allow us the inteligence to ascertain our own dogs' requirements.

I did give Barf on a small scale a go for a full year, but hit a problem when beef on the bone was banned, as my local butcher who supplied much of my raw meaty bones was not going to sit and sort bits for me, and all the bony waste got taken away.

Not having room for a dog freezer also made things difficult, and the advent of a litter put the final nail in the coffin for me, as I do not drive and had to treck with carier bags for the bits I needed on top of doing the houshold shop.

Also it does require some study of nutrition, which as has been pointed out many pet owners do not have. I would imagine a poorly thought out BARF diet could cause more malnutrition and problems than a commercial diet. I now look for a commercial diet with no colours, preserved using vit E and C and a reasonably high percentage of animal protein.

At the moment I am trying Autarky on my lot with a block of tripe split between the four of them. I wanted a maintenace food with a good meat content (28% chicken in the adult) that I could add a small amount (100g) of fresh trip or meat to. The Dry used on it's own that I have been most pleased with has been Arden Grange (original not classic), but I liked the idea of the herbs in the Autarky, and as it is lower protein to be able to add a touch of meat.

Hey thanks for that lovely comment Isabel, that gave my ego a lift!!!

Have we seen each other at shows then?

I saw your dogs at Blackpool Jayne.

Next time you are about at a show come and say hello. I assume you are in Dandies?

I do go to watch the Dandies Jayne, but I don't show mine. :D Sams wrong when she says there is no such thing as a great pedigree, mines got one, Champion Sire (BOB Crufts), mother Champion sired, 6 out of 8 Great-Grandparents Champions, in all 27 Champions in her 5 generation pedigree, evenly split 15/12 between her parents, a combination that produced other show quality pups - but not mine :D. Nellie will always be the apple of my eye, but show dog she ain't.

thats the best sort to have Isabel, those special ones are the best ones to have.

I have quite a penchance for Dandies, after all Borders and Dandies originated from similar stock.

Jayne

They seem to share a more sociable aspect than some terriers, although I have to say its seems noisier round the Border ring :) I absolutely adore Nellie, everthing about her character is perfect to me, but the one problem we have is she has never really coped with the amount of exercise our household indulges in, many of our walks are taken without her, for that reason alone we may not have another Dandie until we are in our dotage ourselves :) When the time comes it may very well be the Border we will be taking a closer look at, or maybe the Bedlington, another very close cousin (some books have it that these two occured in the same litter, the achondroplasics being the Dandies).

Oi you two. Stop having a chat and get back to the arguement! We're just off up the country park so that Trefor can catch a duck and eat it!
No seriously I do note your feelings, but those who know me know that I'm a bit of a wind up merchant. Anyone of sushi.

:D

:-D

Nothing better than a good argument is there Gibbsy.

Bye the way I hate sushi too. LOL

Here's another reason for feeding barf. Four dogs in a touring caravan used as a trade stand at dog shows, all fed on Chum (I did some work for them at the time). All breaking wind, the champion fluffer was known as Smelly Kelly, mind you I think she would have stunk even if she had swallowed best perfume! Thank goodness were non smokers we could have caused an explosion there was so much gas in there.

Life expectancy has been increasing ever since commercial food was introduced. I don't know what they put in it to attract the dogs either but it works! :D. Mine don't have any of these unpleasant effects and lifes too short to stuff a mushroom......:p:D

hi yes your story sounds exactly the same as my 2 year old german shepard jessey,although her attacks are becoming more frequent,I am currently feeding her on fresh chicked (boiled) and long grain rice,she loves it but she is losing weight on it,the vet has suggested steroids (I hate that word) I have had blood tests done and am waiting for the results,they keep giving me antibiotics for her which work untill the course is completed,then the cycle starts again,she is up to date with her worming and vacs,I am baffled,she can be fine for upto 6 weeks,the vet has also suggested changing the type of protien?? I had her on burgess super dog dry food(fussy) she was great on that for 6 weeks then wham!! the flare ups back again,whats scaring me is that I lost my old girl tasha(german sheppard) at 14 yrs to the exact problems,all I seem to be doing is going round in circles,if any one can help I would be very gratefull......

Antibiotics are just killing every thing in the gut this includes the essential flora of the gut, which is needed to digest food this needs building up with probiotics i.e a diet of raw food, yougurt, fruit and veg.
It will take a few months but It's got to be worth a try!

Thanks Kazco, They have been giving him live yogurt for two days now and so far no runs! Fingers and all four legs are crossed! Bo seems to be fine in himself as well not moping around so much. Will keep you posted!

thats great news,my jessy is looking better on her fresh chicken and rice,the blood tests came back and no bad news there although I am still waiting for the big one to come back pancreacitus???? I have started giving her a little live yogurht (thanks for the advice) she loves it,I am hoping to get some vitamins and minerals into her once she has finished her antibiotics,after the runs and sickness stopped she didnt go to the toilet for three days,at last today shes been and no runs although its a funny orange colour,at least its a start,well hope thing keep going well for your chap ,let me know how you go,cheers kazco100

Can i ask u somthing Kazco100? Has the poo also got like seeds in it? Sounds bad i know but my shep seems to be the same as yours....fine for a while then runs/sick etc....this seems to be happining evry month on and off.....

Del

I have looked again today and yes it has seeds in the poo and mucus????? how are you dealing with it,I have been told to try the burns diet,or the hypoallernenic foods?? I feel for you its a nightmare,I am still feeding her on boiled rice and chicken at the moment but am wiling to try anything once that might help,let me know if you have any ideas and how you get on,good luck kazco100

Well, to be honest, i only saw the seed like stuff last night, before (a month or so ago) it was runs and mucas, vet gave me ummm forgot the name but it soilds up the poo. Its a white liquid i had to give him, over a few days, and a course of anti-biotics. After a few days all returned to normal. But low and behold 2-3 mornings ago he was sick, and really down in the dumps, and now has the runs(no mucas this time) and as i said, seed like things in it. I starved him for 24-36hrs started feeding him chicken n rice, and he is more like himself now, just waiting for him to have a poo to see what its like. If its no better then i shall take him to the vets and see what they have to say and keep u updated. He eats a well know dried dog food normally and has been on that type of food all his life (2 years old now), apart from he has gone from puppy/junior to adult. Now depending who i talk to, depends what they think of the food....some say its that some say he should be fine on it. He is ex-police retired due to a cartlidge(spelling?) problem, but i puppy walked him and he was fine then on it then and all the police adult and pups are fed on the same stuff, so when he was offered back to us i kept him on the same food. I am at a loss at the moment like you.....so at least neither of us are on our own :-)

Keep me updated as i will you

GL

Regards

Del

If it is any help have had Min on Naturediet since Friday and we have, solid poos, no wind from either end :D and she has got so much energy. She has been chasing footballs for more than a couple of goes and nearly kept up with my younger two. She has also been taking more of an active role in the play fighting that goes on often in our house and has been the instigator instead of been instigated !! A definately improved Min ! Not bad for a nearly 13 yr old who has had colitis for 4 years !!

Lucy

Hi

recently I have been talking to a friend whose dog has been diagnosed with pancreatitis. Because of the lack of enzyme the food was not digested properly and built up bacteria whilst sitting in the gut and the dog regularly had upset stomachs. Antibiotics only worked becasue they killed the bugs living in the undigested food.

She now has a new vet who has suggested feeding small amounts 3 or 4 times a day which is working beautifully. The dogs stomach can cope with digesting the small amounts of food, and is now gaining a bit of weight. She has not had diaroeah (spelling!!!!) for a couple of months.

Good luck

Julia & Hooligans

Incidentally, I feed commercial food and my boys have lovely firm little dooings, unless they had raided the bin.