[Frances M]

Currently I have three dogs, a 10 yr.old GS, a 3 yr.old terrier, and a 1.5 yr.old 18 lb. terrier something. They all eat the same food, boiled chicken and rice along with Rachael Rays Zero grain kibble once a day. My GS more times than not has diarrhea and he’s the only one with this problem. He has had his blood work and stool analyzed and it shows nothing. He put him on antibiotics and it went away for three or four days, give him antibiotics again and the same thing happens. My vet wants to run every test he can before he treats him for the obvious. Maybe I’m feeding him wrong, yesterday I stopped giving him the kibble to see if that could be part of the problem. So here’s one of my questions, what hard food would I feed him and how much. He’s at a good weight for his size according to the vet, 100 lbs., he’s a big boy. Question two, how much do I feed my little dog who is 18 lbs.? I have never had a small dog before and I am really just guessing.

Thank you for any suggestions.

[Susan]

Hasn’t the vet put him on a vet prescription diet to see if the diarrhea will stop, then go from there, I know alot of people dont like vet diets but they are money back if they dont work & they may help ur dog until you work out whats happening.. with a lot of the grain free kibbles they have potatoes my boy cant eat the potato kibbles, 1 they are too hard to digest & go thru him, also German Sheperds are known for Pancreatitis what my boy has ..My boy has I.B.D & Pancreatitis he needs a low fat diet under 10% fat also he cannot eat boiled rice as it irratates his bowel giving him diarrhea..I give boil chicken breast with pumkin instead & this has helped him also he’s on a vet prescrition diet Eukanuba Intestinal & now he is doing real good after being on the Intestinal since August 2013 now Im so slowley mixing the Intestinal with Holistic Select Senior the fat is 10% the Protein is 26% & the fiber is 3.50% so far so good…it will say on the bag of kibble how much to feed a 18lb dog…..

[InkedMarie]

What is ARD? Why are you feeding rice, which is a grain, then a grainfree food?

[losul]

I had to look up ARD. Stands for antibiotic responsive diarrhea. I think it’s a generalized term that’s basically the same or very similar to SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

Frances, you stated that your vet wants to run numerous tests before treating for “the obvious” What do you consider obvious? I think your vet wants to do whats best and get to the cause of the bacterial overgrowth instead of just treating the symptoms by repeatedly loading up on dangerous antibiotics, such as metronidazole just to have the same symptoms reappear upon stopping them, and maybe making things worse in the longer term.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by losul.

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