# Puppy can't get rid of Giardia - any advice?



## Shnga (Jan 25, 2019)

Hello! I've been reading a lot of posts on this forum and have found this site so helpful! We got our second Golden at 10 weeks old at the end of January (our first one passed away last November) and we've been battling giardia for the past two months. She's 19 weeks old now. I'll do my best to recap, but she's been on SO MUCH medicine it's hard for my memory to keep it straight. Her first vet visit showed she had Giardia. She was treated with a 10 day course of Panicure (please forgive my spellings if they're incorrect). That treatment failed. Her second treatment was another 10 day course of Panicure with a round Flagyl I believe. Also, during her first treatment, a few days after we got her she came down with Parvo so her gut has been put through the ringer. I don't remember what they gave her for the third round (i think it was azythromycin) but after treatment her PCR test showed she didn't have any live parasite anymore but there was some DNA present. The vet put her on another 12 day round of Azythromycin and retested her with an "in-house" giardia test last Thursday and it came back positive again!! UGH!! They prescribed another round on Flagyl and Azythromycin which I gave her this morning. I took her to a different vet today to get a second opinion and he is going to run another ELISA test to confirm the positive result, and said that if she was his dog he would take her off of the azythromycin. He didn't know of it treating Giardia and he couldn't think of a good reason for her to be on it?? Plus it might be contributing to the consistency of her poop and messing with her gi tract. 

In addition to all of the meds, I was sanitizing like crazy (and will start again today)...mopping our floors every night with bleach and water, cleaning up her poop right away and spraying with bleach solution, wiping her rear after she goes to the bathroom, cleaning of her dishes after each use, cleaning her crate every night, washing her bedding, etc. I think I've done everything. She doesn't eat her poop thankfully. Honestly I don't know how in the world she could have been reinfested!

Here's what my intuition is telling me... I think her insides are a mess - first from the Parvo and second from all of the medications she's been on for the past 2 months to treat the parvo and the parasites (side note... she had a couple other parasites in there too that they treated and went away thankfully). I'm wondering if the reason she's having a hard time kicking it is because her gut was messed from the Parvo? I've been giving her yogurt to get some good bacteria into her system. She's eating, growing and thriving, coat is healthy and acts like a normal puppy. Her only symptom is soft poop, but that could be from the meds.

My questions are... has anyone else experienced such a hard time getting rid of Giardia? What treatments have ultimately worked for you? I read that there was a study done on mice and it showed that mice with giardia that were given MSM tested negative for Giardia after two weeks of treatment. Has anyone else heard of this? Does anyone know of any safe, alternative (aka natural) ways to increase the health of a puppy's gut? I'd love to give her gut some support while she's on these meds and trying to get rid of these parasites! I've also read that at a certain point it might be best to just let her own immune system take care of getting rid of it?? Any expertise in greatly appreciated!! 

Thank you!!


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## Emmdenn (Jun 5, 2018)

Yikes! I am sorry you are going through this with your girl. Hang in there! You could try a powder probiotic like ProBios, to give her, it may be a little more effective than the yogurt.


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## eeerrrmmm1 (Apr 15, 2018)

Giardia can be resistant to treatment and/or your pup may just be getting reinfected from dirt (it can be present in the soil) or from other dogs. Adult dogs can be carriers of giardia and not have any symptoms and your puppy can catch it just from sniffing their behinds or poop.

Honestly, though, I wouldn't be treating if she doesn't have symptoms. If she has symptoms, I'd do 14 days of Fenbendazole (Panacur) once daily along with 10 days of Metronidazole (Flagyl) twice daily again. It can take multiple rounds of this regimen to finally work. I'd also wash everything - toys, bowls, bedding on day 3-4 of treatment and again on day 12-14 of treatment. 

My girl has had several bouts w/ giardia but it's lessened over time. I'm hopeful that her immune system is finally starting to mature. My vet said that Hill's Science Diet is coming out w/ a new nutritionally complete Microbiome food that was clinically shown to prevent diarrhea recurrence in dogs w/ previously recurring diarrhea. She said it was introduced at conference she was at and the clinical data was impressive. So if my girl gets it again, I will probably switch over to that to see if it helps toughen up her GI microbiome and prevents recurrence. It's going to be available in a couple of months. Good luck!


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

It can be so frustrating to deal with giardia. It tends to go dormant for a bit and then come back. But generally, as the dog's grows up and the immune system strengthens, they are able to fight it off with no symptoms. 

That said - that DOES sound like a lot of meds. Two questions:

- Was your dog given a prescription food during this time? Purina EN is a very bland, very easy to digest food that helps calm their insides during this kind of illness. If you haven't already, I would switch to this food and give no other treats or anything. Just let her insides settles down (you can do this food for several months - it's all ages). The kibble was like crack for my dog - she loved it, despite the blandness.

- Was your dog ever put on a course of probiotics? She has had a lot of antibiotics. It would probably be beneficial to rebalance the bacteria in her gut. FortiFlora worked very well for my girl (I even used it more recently when she had a very bad gastro virus and just couldn't get her poops back to normal, even weeks later). 

I would try those two steps and not do any further meds right now and see what happens. When they are older, they can get fecals that are positive for parasites but have no symptoms. I can't remember how old my pup was when we finally kicked it (she had giardia and coccidia as a baby puppy, from 8 weeks on). But it was definitely months. 

Oh, also - when you are wiping, are you only wiping downwards? You have to be careful that you are not re-infecting. I might actually stop that for now, too, since the only time it is effective to wipe is when they are shedding the parasite. At that point, you want to make sure it's not "crawling" back up inside. But that's usually only done for a few days after they've been on the med for 3 days or so. 

Hope some of this helps.


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## Shnga (Jan 25, 2019)

Thank you so much for your reply. When she was recovering from parvo right after we got her she was put on a prescription canned food that was very bland to help her system calm down but then we transitioned her to normal food. I've been giving her chicken breast with white rice for a couple days now with hopes of it firming things up. Finally her poop tonight was way better. Before today I had been giving her plain yogurt with her food and then moved to kefir for some good bacteria. I actually went today and bought her some capsule probiotics from Just Food for Dogs to sprinkle on her food to avoid giving her dairy while her system is upset. Right now she's on day two of a 10 day course of panicure and is also on metronidazole. I think I'll finish these and then regroup. I was reading today that even after a "successful" treatment the fecal tests can show that there is a parasite present for a very long time. If after this treatment course she isn't displaying symptoms I think I'll let her system recover and stop treating even if the recheck shows it's still present. It could just take a while for it to clear out. I'm wondering if that's what happened this last time. As far as the wiping goes I have not only been wiping down. I thought the point of the wiping was to get any cysts off of her so she doesn't lick and reinvest or contaminate anywhere else. I never considered it going back inside! Ugh! She doesn't get messy so I'll just stop doing that. Tomorrow's day 3 of the panicure so she'll get another bath and I'm still sanitizing etc. This whole thing has been so sad and exhausting! I just can't wait for it to be over and have her be healthy and be able to move on with her life! Thank you again for your response!


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

I know exactly how you feel. I remember one time carrying Shala into my vet's office and just looking at her and saying, "I need this to be over." It was so hard, and my girl was worse at night, with explosive, pure liquid diarrhea, so we'd be up and outside 2-3 times through the night. I was falling down exhausted. And she was clearly in pain and not well, which is so hard to see. But it DID get better. 

The one thing I might suggest is to not do the probiotic while she is on the other meds. Finish the meds and then do the probiotic, because otherwise they can cancel each other out. I would just stop the dairy based products altogether. The less her system is dealing with, the better. 

And yes, they can be positive for parasites with no symptoms, especially as they get older. My dog tested positive just this past year for hookworm, but she never had symptoms (she is 5 years old) and it was just her annual routine fecal. We did treat her, though, because even without symptoms, you do want to get rid of the parasite. Giardia and coccidia are just so stubborn. Hang in there...


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## sdain31y (Jul 5, 2010)

Both of our rescues battled giardia for what seemed like years. They were on Rx food for joint issues, but we added FortFlora when they weren’t on Pancur. They’d seem to get better and then we’d start to see signs it was flaring up again. They finally outgrew it, but it was a challenge for at least a couple of years. Neither had great immune systems and although we lost both early, they were relatively healthy as adults.

Good luck. It’ll get better.


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

The pup is probably re infecting itself outdoors. Lots of things carry giardia, birds, bunnies, etc. 

I'm guessing you're trying to change diets too quickly. Put the pup on boiled chicken and rice (it doesn't have to be breast, thighs or drummies are just as good. keep the pup on the bland diet for three weeks AFTER firm stools are observed. It takes this long for the pups insides to settle down, heal and establish new good bacteria in the gut. It takes time for all that to happen, not a day or two. If you try to push things along too fast, he/she will have a bout of loose stools flushing everything out again and you're back to square one.


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## Shnga (Jan 25, 2019)

Thank you for your help. I am nervous to have her on just the plain chicken and rice because I am worried it doesn't have all of the nutrients she needs as a puppy. She's growing SO fast that even three weeks makes a huge difference. I'm happy to say her poops did firm up nicely on the chicken and rice though. I introduced the puppy food again, starting with just a quarter cup and the rest chicken and rice. So far so good. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Thanks again for your input.


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## Shnga (Jan 25, 2019)

I think you might be right about the probiotic. I give her the medicine in the morning and at night, and the probiotic at lunch so I'm not giving it at the same time thus negating one of the other, but maybe I'll just stop all together and wait until she's thru with this round of medicine. Thank you.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

Shnga said:


> I think you might be right about the probiotic. I give her the medicine in the morning and at night, and the probiotic at lunch so I'm not giving it at the same time thus negating one of the other, but maybe I'll just stop all together and wait until she's thru with this round of medicine. Thank you.



Oh, sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean at the exact same time, I meant during the time you are giving the meds. You should give all the meds - and then only after that do you start the course of probiotics (as you said you will do now, which is good!). They are still all going into her body at the same time whether you are giving at breakfast or lunch. So yes, definitely good to stop the probiotic for now.


If you are worried about just chicken and rice, and I agree it is not ideal to feed it more than 2-3 days, get some Purina EN from your vet (or one of the other prescription gastro foods). It is fully balanced, all ages, and very bland and easy to digest. I'd plan to feed it for a good 4-8 weeks. Shala ate it for months after she was symptom-free, just to let everything calm down and get a chance to recover. If you regularly see blood in your pup's diarrhea, that suggests an inflamed colon (nothing to panic about). It can be streaks or drops at the end, and it can really help to switch to a very bland and easy-to-digest food. Even without blood, it is a good food to try. It's bland but it was like puppy-crack to my girl - she loved it (and still does - I had to give it to her last summer after an illness and she was thrilled).


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