# recounting my dog's horrible diarrhea episode this week



## dogclass (Feb 16, 2011)

Hi,
I wanted to share this experience. For a lot of first time dog owners, we're not used to it when our dogs get sick, and we're not used to what kind of progression an illness can take. So, I wanted to share this diarrhea experience.

Friday: Dog ok. Gave raw cow knuckle bone
Saturday: runny poop
Sunday: went to dog park, runny mucus poop, started feeding half rations
Monday: runny green poop, straining to poop, had to get up 2 times at night
Tuesday: runny poop, straining, 2 more middle of the night poops
Wednesday morning: decided not to feed him breakfast
Wednesday afternoon: bloody poop, bloody poop, bloody poop, vomit in kennel, VET VISIT!
Wednesday dinner time: no appetite, lethargic, but no more diarrhea
Wednesday night 10PM: suddenly less lethargic, wanting food (but still fasting)

I still don't know what caused the whole episode. He usually gets the runs for 2 days after he gets a raw bone, so we expected that. But then it didn't improve after Monday, and the middle-of-night diarrhea was really out of the ordinary. It might have been that he ate something at the dog park, because at one point he ran off in the trees and came back covered in poop. So, it's a mystery what caused it.

But, the day after the dog park, he got really bad. Monday and Tuesday he had to try really hard to poop, and he made farting sounds. Poor guy, I was really sorry I gave him the raw knuckle bone. My girlfriend doesn't really like it when I feed him raw bones because it gives him the runs, so I was starting to believe maybe Cody just can't take it. We still don't know if it was the raw bone.

The thing that made to rush to the vet was Wednesday. When I came home for lunch to check on him, he puked in his kennel. When I took him outside, his runny diarrhea was red. I rushed to the vet. The doctor wasn't too concerned though. He said lots of things caused diarrhea, and we just have to let it run its course. He said he usually recommends a day of fasting followed by mild foods, so it was good that we didn't feed him breakfast Wednesday morning.

The doc prescribed two types of pills: Pro-pectalin (anti-diarrhea) and Metronidazole (antibiotic).

Cody lost his appetite by the time we got back home from the vet, so I couldn't give him the pill. He puked again after getting out of the car. For the 3 hours after the vet, he had to go every hour. Every time we went outside, he had a bit of bloody diarrhea. So in that afternoon, he probably went 7 times, two of which was in front of the vet's front yard, and several more times at home after the vet. It really scared me.

By around dinner time, he was really lethargic. He seem to be getting worst, but at least he stopped having hourly diarrhea. Still wouldn't take the medicine no matter what I try to hide it in. I was anxious to give him the Metronidazole. So my girlfriend put the pill in his mouth while I used a turkey baster to squirt water in his mouth to make him swallow. That worked great for the small pill. The pro-pectalin, on the other hand, is a huge pill, and is meant to be chewed I think, so we skipped that for now. I try giving him half a pill of it, but he spit it out on the floor pillow. We left the half pill there.

At around 10PM, he got up off the floor and started moving around, drinking water on his own. We only let him have small amounts of water at a time, but he seem thirsty. He did something funny. When I asked if he wanted to go outside, he turned around and went to the floor pillow where I left the half a pill of pro-pectalin. He gobbled up the pill like he had been saving it for later. We gave him the other half of the pro-pectalin without problems.

I took him out to see what he'll do. He pee, but didn't have any poop.

Today (Thursday), he was much much better. Begging for food, but I'm only giving him a little bit at a time. White rice and scrambled eggs.

Pro-pectalin seems like a pretty useful drug.

edit: His fecal results came in today. No worms.


Tags: Colitis, diarrhea


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