Help!

S

southbynorth

Forums Novice
I am sure this isn't the right place to post, but am in a tiz so hope you will forgive me.

Our pup has had a problem with soft stools since we got him, the breeder was feeding him bakers complete :eek2:

We migrated onto jameswellbeloved on a tip from the vet and a friend, it took a while but we had a month with solid, normal poop - much relief.

Until the last 23 hours - he has had explosive diarrhea, to the point it took me 45 minutes at 5am to clean the kitchen up! He is still active, happy, drinking and eating (through not eating as much as normal), no blood or anything odd in the mess. If it doesn't stop by tomorrow I will take him to the vets.

What I am curious about, is if I am doing anything wrong to cause his soft stools -

He is about 5 months old, eating 80 grams (measured in a eukanuba measuring cup, puppy small breed measurement) in the morning, and another 80 at night.

We flea treat and worm treat regulary, so I am reasonably confident its not that, he sometimes gets hold of something dead on walks (we live in countryside so it cant be avoided) but I get them off him as quickly as I can

Am I over-feeding? Is the food no good? Just at my wits end, I love the lad so so much, and want the best for him, but I need to get him onto solid, normal poop as its taxing me so much having to clean mess up so often!
 
In the time it took for me to yell out to my son "Phoebe has something" while we were on a walk, she ingested enough to nearly kill her. Keep that pup on lead until you can be sure that it has a good "leave it" command on him.
He may just have a sensitive stomach or it could be more insidious than that. If he were mine I would do a complete work up including stool sample, put him on boiled chicken breast or boiled lean ground beef and rice for a few days to rest his stomach, as well as lacto bacillus, available here at the drug store (chemists) to refurbish the gut and then slowly move him onto the food. It could be that he has a parasite like giardia that is causing the problem. Not all are covered by deworming. Young dogs can dehydrate quickly so get on top of this asap.
 
Righty, off to the vets we go!

Recall is good for the age, she just has a nibble before coming back to me, but your point is a good one, so back on the lead until I can find a good training class.

He seems ok at the moment, he has done a mostly solid poop today, and I am not feeding him to let his stomach work it through today - based on advice from the vets nurse before people think I am being cruel!

He has plenty of water on tap, and I am leaving the back door open all day so he has easy access to the grass if he does get any rumblings
 
That level of explosive diarrhea indicates something more serious than just the wrong food or too much food. I wouldn't wait until tomorrow to have him at your vet's for a full checkup...bloodwork/stool sample.

Hope this can be resolved soon and your little guy back to normal.

Trini
 
I agree with Trini and Tagg...great advice! Your pup may have coccidia or girardia which are fairly common puppy ailments, both of which need medication to treat, so a vet visit is definitely in order. In the meantime, feed boiled chicken breast and white rice as Tagg suggested and make sure your puppy is hydrated and drinking water.

For less serious bouts of diarrhea you can add some canned, plain pumpkin to his food but this sounds more serious. Please let us know how your little one does!
 
Apologies for not updating earlier, its been a bit traumatic recently with my wifes mother dying unexpectedly the day after I posted.

A vet visit and some advice re food did the trick for our pup - essentially I was slightly over-feeding, that plus what the cheeky lad was catching was playing havoc with his belly.

I have now cut back on the portion sizes - Ollie doesn't seem to mind, he barks more at food time now, but he hasn't lost any weight (the vet did say we had caught the issue before it affected his weight) and we are slowly switching to a better food - there has been a pretty decent improvement in the frequency of toilet times, and its coming out like it should now thankfully.

On a side note, this is my first sheltie, and what a great dog they are - he is being such a comfort to my wife at the moment, hectic and crazy with me and the children at playtimes, but somehow he knows all my wife wants right now is a calm cuddle, very impressive.

Thank you to everyone that gave advice - as you can tell, I was panicking at the time as the vets were closed, and I was worried how ill he was!
 
shelties have sensitivity

shelties have very sensitive stomachs, so you MUST make sure you really know what they are ingesting. Allergies develop quickly in the breed, and most find that grains are NOT tolerated and lead to further complications in health if given. If at all possible, it is best to feed raw, or as close to raw, and organic that you are able. And WATCH out for treats laced with stuff that isn't healthy for any living thing, read up on what some longstanding pet manufactures include in their treats, it will SCARE you. Limit the amount of innoculations, flea products, and be VERY careful about what type/kind of heartworm meds given, some are extremely TOXIC to the breed, read posts on that. Oh and watch out for rosemary extract-read up on that, shelties can have epileptic seizures from rosemary-been there done that with my 2nd sheltie having a treat with that and it is the SCARIEST thing to have happen. I have had healthy, long lived shelties because I paid attention and made sure I knew what they were exposed too. Puppies TRY everything, so be on guard to what they can (and will) taste...sometimes I think they are worse than a toddler, ha...
 
Condolences to the family and glad your pup is doing better.

My guys are mostly iron bellies on food so not much bothers them. Spitfire cannot have Blue Buffalo for some reason (a decent food over here) as he has an allergy to something in it. Otherwise they are good to go and get Fromm (not available there I am sure).

As to the sympathy :lol: I crashed a race motorcycle and then got run over so was in a fair amount of pain. When I got home Sca was elated to see me as always and after one jump up was gold from then on. He even kept an eye on me constantly for a bit. Spitfire walked on me broken rib and all :eek2: he has zero sympathy :lol: Glad your pup is doing his job unlike SOME *cough*Spitfire*cough* did.
 
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