No more diarrhea and mucous, still noisy stomach, not wanting to eat (long)

[M.Wallace]

Last month, our 1-1/2 year old Stella started having very loose stool, not quite diarrhea, with mucous - pink and stringy, looked like worms. Not wanting to eat either. Sent it in for parasite testing - came back negative. Negative in April too when her yearly checkup occurred.

I had asked the vet to test it for worms, and to look at it because I wanted to know what the pink mucous was - I didn't think it could be large adult worms. Of course, they blindly sent it off for testing, and didn't look at it. The next day on the phone, the vet told me, 'oh it must be mucous, she probably has colitis, and her stomach doesn't agree with the food you are giving her'. 'Come in an pick up a bag of Medi-Cal Gastro, and it should clear it up.' 'I see the last time you came in (april) you switched here to Medi-Cal Hypoallegenic (we didn't) and she seems to be doing fine on it, but we'll switch her anyway'.

They wanted us to switch to Medi-cal hypoallergenic to clear up some red irritation on her belly. We have been feeding here Canidae since day 1, and I wasn't going to switch to that garbage. They gave me some omega-3 fish oil pills and that seemed to help.

Anyways.. a few weeks ago the mucous was constant, and stools still loose, and didn't want to eat at all. Breeder recommended testing for Giardia. Came back negative.

Fed her boiled chicken and white rice - stools turned to diarrhea for a week. Changed food to Fish and Potatoe - her stools have been perfect for a week. Maybe she is allergic to chicken. We were also giving her yogurt and cheese for the past couple months. Maybe she is allergic to dairy, so we stopped that with the food change.

BUT - occasionally in the morning, her stomach is making a lot of noise. When it is doing that, she won't eat. Eventually later in the day she will eat, and then is fine. But when it is making noise, she isn't herself - she's not bouncing around.

Any ideas?

 

[Net45582]

I would try giving her a small meal before bedtime. Sometimes when their tums are very empty it causes upset.

 

[M.Wallace]

Monday morning her stomach was making the noises, but I coaxed her into eating. Once she got the taste of the food, she started to gobble it down no problem, and then it obviously made her feel better. That is what we have been finding for the last 2 months while the stool problems were occurring - if her stomach was making noise, she woundn't want to eat, but if I put once piece of kibble in her mouth, she would play with it, occasionally spit it out, but eventually she would start eating the pieces, and then have no problem eating the rest.

My wife just phoned, and Stella just finished eating her morning food, again with some coaxing.

The food we switched to is Solid Gold Holistique Blendz - which I know is for senior/less active dogs, but it is also for dogs with sensitive stomachs. It was suggested to try it for a few weeks to straighten out the mucous problems, which it had, and then I will switch her to a proper food, maybe lamb and rice - still avoid the chicken.

 

[MomToBooBoo]

Giardia?

Did they test her for the parasite giardia??? It's not always tested for. We're dealing with it now, and he tummy does the same thing from time to time, and she's not interested in food. She's had runny poo, no pink though.

 

[gmacleod]

Have you considered the possibility that the dog might be allergic to rice? Grain allergies are just as common, probably more so, than meat allergies... And I note that she had difficulty with chicken/rice, which is normally a very bland diet.

LOL - the easiest way to test that particular theory, should you feel so inclined, is to try feeding her some hamburger and well cooked rice instead of the chicken/rice she had problems with before Quite understand if you don't particularly feel like experimenting right now though. Allergy testing is another possibility.

I have the feeling, from what you've written there, that you have a dog that simply is intolerant to grains. And that's actually not that unusual. Grains are a completely foreign foodstuff for canines, and something that the majority of them tolerate. That's tolerate. Which is a very long way from thrive. The simple fact of the matter is that grains exist in dog food for two reasons only: the first is that they are a cheap source of protein that most dogs will tolerate (very cheap compared to meat, that is); and second, because it is impossible to make an extruded kibble without a huge amount of starch (grains being an excellent source). Kibble simply will not stick together and form those convenient little dry pellets without it.

What you might (should) have noted there is that grains in dog food have absolutely nothing to do with being a good or species-appropriate thing to feed your dog. And the fact is, they're neither. Dogs have absolutely no eveolved need of carbohydrates in their diet at all - this is like feeding fish to cows. They're responsible for more allergy and digestive problems than anything else known. And while most dogs will manage to tolerate grains, there are some who simply never will.

Here's a short veterinary article on the role of grains/carbs in dog food that can help you to put things in perspective here: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1661&articleid=655

Intolerance of grains may well be one explanation of why your dog did better on a fish/potato diet than one that included rice or other grains.

Anyway - that's something worth considering. As for what to do about it, if that's the case... well, your options in order of preference would be:
1. Ditch the kibble in entirety and move to a natural raw diet instead.
2. Feed a homecooked or canned food diet that does not include grains of any description.
3. Try a grainless kibble. There is a "new generation" of dry foods now available, which started with Innova EVO two or three years ago and which is spreading. There are now about half a dozen good grainless dry foods around. They're not a miracle-in-a-bag, of course. The old problem of it being impossible to create extruded kibble without around 50% starch/carbs still exists, and nothing changes the fact that canines evolved on a diet that excluded carbs - and are not well designed to cope with them. But these foods are using starchy vegetables in place of grains, contain a heck of a lot more meat than most "traditional" kibbles - and generally are just a better product. One of those may be something that your dog can tolerate better.

If you're interested in the former suggestions - go straight to the barf forum here and start researching. There are plenty of raw feeders on Boxerworld who'll help out with any questions - and will share their experiences with similarly affected dogs who're now thriving.

If the latter appeals to you more - then take a look at the 6-star category of foods at www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews Those are the new generation grainless foods, and may possibly be suitable for your dog. A simple internet search will turn up the manufacturer's websites, all of which have store locators to help you to find a retailer. They're suitable for dogs of about 18 months and up - so your Stella should have no problems from an age/growth perspective.

 

[M.Wallace]

MomToBooBoo - we tested her for Giardia - said that in the middle of my first post.

Her stool tonight loose again, with pink mucous - the color of pink grapefruit. About 30% of it was mucous. Stools were perfectly normal yesturday. The mucous/loose stools usually come 1/2 - 2 days after a noisy stomach/picky eating.

The Solid Gold Holistique Blendz has no rice, but it has Oatmeal and Rye as the first ingredients, then Fish Meal. I'm pretty sure I can get Solid Gold Barking at the Moon around here. Haven't seen Innova, but I'll look for it. I like the idea anyways.

 

[gmacleod]

Well, it can certainly be worth a try The current regime isn't working all that well.

The pink, incidentally, is likely to be very small amounts of blood mixed with the mucous. All that really tells you is what you already know - her intestinal tract is being irritated.

One other suggestion: Try a search of these forums. This site has been around a long time, and there are not many health issues that haven't been covered previously. There are many many threads about dogs with mucousy stools - with a wide variety of different causes, of course. The most likely in your dog's case are probably irritable bowel or colitis... But amongst them, you may well find some scenarios that just fit with what you've experienced, and if there's a diagnosis there, then it can be worth mentioning to your vet. Terms to search on are "mucous AND stool" and "mucus AND stool" (both spellings ). There are a couple of pages of results for both.

 

[Tankersbabe]

My Semmi has the noisy stomach problem, and I found that if I split her feedings into various small feedings throughout the day, she eats better and has less rumble. If we are late feeding her, the tummy growling can be heard clear into another room, and she has no appetite. We are able to convince her to eat by pouring a little vita gravy on her food, or a nibble of cheese or one of her treats. Usually that gets her interested in eating.

She also does the loose stool/mucous thing, especially when we board her. Our vet said stress will bring that on...but she also does it at random intervals when we have her at home.

Good luck...you aren't alone!

Stef

 

[M.Wallace]

She gets 3 cups of the Solid Gold right now. Instead of 1.5 in the morning (6am) and 1.5 at night (5:30pm) we are changing it to 1 cup at 6am, 1 cup at 5:30pm, and 1 cup at 10pm. She's not too thrilled about the food at first, so we mixed up a batch of beef broth cubes (low salt) into boiled water, and put a few tablespoons of that on the food for extra taste, and she sits there licking her chops as we are spooning it on - and then has no problem eating it.

Stool was perfectly normal this morning.

Maybe it's pancreatitis, triggered by the high fat content in Canadae, and now the low fat content of the Solid Gold Holistique Blendz is slowly helping.

Or it could be the grains..

 

[jenn77]

We have had the stomach rumble/won't eat issue in the past as well. Like you, once we got something down he would eat normally.

I have deduced that this happens when he eats his dinner the night before too early - he gets an upset stomach by morning because he is too hungry. When we feed him early, we try to give him a larger snack before bed, or at least more than one cookie, to try to prevent this from happening.

I know there could be other issues, but this sounds like a small piece of the puzzle that may be easily solvable.