# Colitis



## inge (Sep 20, 2009)

I am so sorry..I have no experience with what you are going through though, I hope others will soon chime in.


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## Summer's Mom (Oct 20, 2010)

Summer had colitis as a puppy - though not as young. Her real problems only started round about 6 months. She had frequent poops (not as frequent as yours, just about every hour even through the night) and she was very miserable because she was already toilet trained and would wait patiently at the door for someone to "save her". Her stools were small, mucousy and often had blood in it. We switched her to an only boiled rice and chicken breast diet and she improved by about half. We decided to treat for Giardia even though she tested negative multiple times, and saw great improvement on the Metronidazole. However a few days after the meds stopped, she would have another flare. Eventually by exclusion she was diagnosed with colitis, and we used fairly long-term lowish dose Metronidazole for its anti-inflammatory properties in the gut. She did well for several weeks and we weaned her off it. I kept Metro on hand and everytime she started having bloody/mucousy poops we would put her on a 1 week course and nip it in the bud. 

I had her on a simple homecooked diet for quiet some time - 1 type of meat, 1 carb and a few types of veges.. rotating her menu each week. We then slowly weaned her only low-ish protein kibbles with simple ingredients and she did fine. 

Its been almost a year with no incidents, she even eats anything and everything now


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## MyBentley (May 5, 2009)

I have a four year old lab who developed her first case of colitis this year. Over the course of five days her stools became soft; then diarrhea; and finally huge mucous blobs filled with blood.

The vet put her on Metronidazole for six days. Big improvement came after the first 24 hours on the medication. During the course of treatment I fed well-boiled white rice at 75% with 25% ground cooked turkey (I even pureed the meat the first few days). Then we fed a few days of 50/50 rice to meat. 

A day after the meds were finished, I started adding in kibble with the rice at a 25% ratio. She had been eating a very complicated chicken-based kibble; so I decided to try the California Natural Chicken Meal & Rice Puppy formula (26% protein, 16%) since it is a limited ingredient food. Unfortunately, as I increased the kibble amount, she started having soft stools again. Not wanting that horrible scenario again, I immediately stopped the CN Chicken and bought the CN Lamb Meal & Rice Puppy. She had never had a lamb kibble before. It worked perfectly. She seems to have developed a chicken intolerance which is not all that uncommon.

Puppie can get dehydrated from diarrhea so quickly; so I'm not surprised your dog feels lethargic. If it were me, I'd take a printout of the California Natural Lamb Meal & Rice Puppy formula (both ingredients and guaranteed analysis) to the vet and say you would like to try that before going down the route of expensive tests like ultrasound. Lots of people who have dogs with sensitive systems have found feeding it to be very helpful. It only has 4 or 5 ingredients plus the vitamins. 

Natural Dog Food, Cat Food and Puppy Food for Pets With Food Sensitivity ? California Natural


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## Jennifer1 (Mar 31, 2012)

My pup is about 2 weeks younger than yours. I brought her home and the next day she had diarrhea and vomiting. Vet thinks most likely dehydration (8hr car ride, 100' outside) with possible coccidia.
We are giving her boiled hamburger & sweet potato for a few days before adding kibble back in.
She's on Albon (for coccidia) & metronidazole (they put dogs on this for giardia or unknown GI upset usually).
It is night and day how rapidly she has improved after being on meds (& bland diet)
Hope Ripley feels better soon.


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## oakleysmommy (Feb 20, 2011)

The vet prescribed for my dane the Iams Low Residue Intestinal dry food for 2 weeks, tylan powder and panacur. After months of loose stools, no weight gain and trying Metro and Flagyl this worked like charm, zero issues now. Also give him Purina Fortiflora from the vet in his food once a day its a probiotic for the tummy. We did the Panacur dewormer for 5 days, Tylan powder antibiotic for 4 weeks breakfast/dinner(still on it) and the low residue food i fed this with boiled chicken/rice for a week then slowly added in his normal kibble, i still give a 1/2 cup of the low residue and will contine til it runs out.


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## JMME (Jun 18, 2012)

Thank you guys all for your responses! Ripley is on Metronidazole right now too, so hopefully that will start to kick in more today!  I'm def glad you guys let me know about it continuing after the meds because I def would have been pretty worried if I hadn't known that . I'm going to try the chicken and rice and veggie idea until his stomach settles and that california natural stuff sounds great, so I think that is the kibble that I'm going to start mixing into it. And can you get probiotics anywhere or should I go to the vet for that? Jennifer I'm glad to hear that your pup is getting better! That must have been a lot of extra stress. I def feel like the fluids helped a lot and the bland diet .


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## Deber (Aug 23, 2011)

You can get probotics on line (no rx needed) and if you check the search, you can see what people suggest. Mine are on Dogzymes, but were on Floraflora too at various times (we got this at the Vets but doesn't need an rx). 

After the Metron I have always found the diarrhea return, but fed rice and boiled chicken then slowly added kibble back in the diarrhea usually stopped within a few weeks.

We found our girl had problems with grains (after slowly feeding and eliminating foods) so switched all our dogs to a grain free. No problems returned and doing great. We still feed a probotic daily to all the dogs & mix it in their food.


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## MyBentley (May 5, 2009)

JMME said:


> Thank you guys all for your responses! Ripley is on Metronidazole right now too, so hopefully that will start to kick in more today!  I'm def glad you guys let me know about it continuing after the meds because I def would have been pretty worried if I hadn't known that . I'm going to try the chicken and rice and veggie idea until his stomach settles and that california natural stuff sounds great, so I think that is the kibble that I'm going to start mixing into it. And *can you get probiotics anywhere or should I go to the vet for that?* Jennifer I'm glad to hear that your pup is getting better! That must have been a lot of extra stress. I def feel like the fluids helped a lot and the bland diet .


Absolutely no need to get the probiotics from the vet. They typically cost more plus they are usually brands that contain ingredients I'd rather not feed my dog (such as the "animal digest" in the Purina Fortiflora).

Take a look at Jarrow Pet Dophilus. I've had good results with that and buy it at a local grocery store that sells human Jarrow products. It can also be bought online. An important ingredient for dogs (whichever product you buy) should be "Enterococcus faecium"

Jarrow Formulas : Pet Dophilus


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## JMME (Jun 18, 2012)

Thank you! We are going to try some of that too . The vet just got back to us today and told us that he did have coccidia for sure, so the albon should really help. I'm glad that he should be healthy soon! And i def think I'm going to try to keep him on some probiotics. Hopefully this will be the end to it and it wont be some other digestive issue too


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## JenD (Aug 29, 2012)

*Sounds familiar :/*



JMME said:


> I recently posted about my 9 week old puppy Ripley and his eating/stool issues. Shortly after we very slowly tried changing over his food, but his digestive issues got worse with small and very frequent diarrhea. The poor guy had to go out every 5 mins and was straining every time. He also became very lethargic, so we ended up having to take him into the emergency vet and then in for a follow up the next day. Overall, the vet determined that he has large bowl colitis with an unknown cause and that he has thickened intestinal walls. So, on both days he had to get subcutaneous fluids and he was put on antibiotics for giardia and meds for coccidia while waiting for the results of his stool sample. We will find out more tomorrow and determine whether or not we need to progress with an ultrasound. We also contacted the breeder and no other pups from the litter are having any problems. The vet also put Ripley on an all wet, sensitive stomach adult dog food for the next week. Following the appointment today we have seen a lot of improvement, but he is still abnormally tired and although his stools are less frequent, they are very runny. The vet was also saying there is a good chance that he could have some sever food intolerance. Has anyone else had something like this happen and have any sort of advice? Def not a fun thing for a puppy to deal with


I wish you the best of luck dealing with this, we are in a very similar place.

We have a 6 month old puppy, who's had sporadic diarrhea for 2 months now. He's been tested and treated for parasites and bacteria of all types, and is now completely clean, but still the once a week diarrhea. 

As he's otherwise very healthy, our vet is going to have us try a Low Residue puppy food, with extra fiber, and metronidazole as needed, and wait to see if he grows out of it.


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