# Sudden Sickness and Watery Stools



## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

My 8 month old girl (boxer) had a very bad night Sunday. About two hours after eating she tossed it all up. The rest of the night she refused everything including cheese which she normally goes bonkers over. At just past midnight I heard her hacking and sure enough she threw up again. About an hour and a half later she got sick again, but that time it was white foam.

Monday morning when we woke up she was back to her normal self. She ate her breakfast and was causing some mischief within the first half hour of being awake. Later in the afternoon she had a loose bowel movement, but aside from that she was back to normal. Again today, everything is normal except her stool was VERY loose and liquidy which is causing me to worry.

She's been raw fed for about 3 months now and has been getting the same proteins in rotation. Nothing has changed in her diet other than not having coconut oil because I ran out and hadn't made it back to the store just yet. The only other change I can think of is that I took her crate down. She was crated while I was work, but gradually I've been leaving her out of her crate to see if she could be trusted. She passed with flying colors so I figured I could get rid of the crate. She's used to being fed in her crate, but I wouldn't expect this to cause such a bad reaction. Is it possible that's the problem? I'm certainly open to putting it back up if you think that might be the issue. Do you think not getting the coconut oil might be the problem?

Any other questions or suggestions?


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## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

How much did she eat? She possibly could have eaten too much. The symtoms fit. What exactly did she eat, also?.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

She gets slightly 1-1.5lb of food daily and has never had a problem with it until this week.

To be exact, for breakfast on Sunday she had a couple of juvie turkey necks. They're small so I've been giving her two per meal every other day. She hasn't had a problem with that. For supper Sunday she had 6oz ground lamb with roughly 4.5oz sardines (canned in water with no salt added). She's had this meal pretty regularly with no problem. Monday morning and this morning she got a whole chicken leg with skin (again, she's had this routinely with no problems). Last night for supper she had 6oz beef, 2.5oz liver, 2.5oz beef lung.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

I'm starting to get a little nervous now. She just threw up her supper again.


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## doggiedad (Jan 23, 2011)

if she were my dog i would go to the Vet asap or sooner (and maybe E-Vet). hopefully it's nothing serious.


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## SaharaNight Boxers (Jun 28, 2011)

Could she have eaten something while out of the crate? Is he stomach hard anywhere?


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

I'll be calling the vets to see if the can see her this morning. She's kept in my bedroom when she's out of her crate and I do a pretty good job picking things up, but it's still possible she may have eaten something outside or upstairs or something. Her stomach doesn't feel hard. She did eat a little treat this morning after she went outside to do her business, but she's still acting a little off.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

So Abby seems to be feeling better now. During her second trip outside she grabbed a stick and started running around with it and she was full of wiggles. I think she was very disappointed that she didn't get her breakfast or Kong this morning, but I figured the less stuff in her belly for her appt the better. I'm being ultra paranoid that it's a partial blockage or something so hopefully that'll be ruled out rather quickly. She's not bloated nor does she seem to be in any discomfort, but I know dogs hide things well when they're in pain so I'm not relying on that. She did drink some water last night just before bed time and she kept that down. She also had a BM this morning and it was not watery like yesterday's. It was soft, but not too bad. I scooped some up to bring a sample with us to our appt. We're scheduled to go in at 2:20pm this afternoon. I'll keep you posted.


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## kathylcsw (Jul 31, 2011)

Good luck. I hope it is not anything serious. She is beautiful by the way!


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## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

Let us know as soon as you get done how it went.


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

This summer Turtle got into something and like a dummy I didn't fast her, she too had runny poos. I took her to the vet and she did an x-ray and said there looked to be a bit of blockage. I couldn't get slippery elm at the time but I fasted her with home made liver broth and chicken broth for I think just a day then fed her as usual and she was fine.

I would have done the slippery elm as well if I had had it. But I think it would be a good idea to make sure from the vet she doesn't have any blockage.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

A blockage is my main fear right now so I'm definitely requesting X-Rays to rule it out if they don't mention it. It's been one loooooooooooooooong day!! I'm at work and she's at home so I have no way of knowing how she's doing. She was pretty normal when I left her this morning so hopefully she's still doing ok.


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## InkedMarie (Sep 9, 2011)

I hope she's OK! Not sure if i asked you this already but where are you in NH? I'm in Gilford.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

So Abby’s appt went pretty well. The vet didn’t suspect a blockage because of what I described to her and because Abby appeared to be ok with her palpating her abdomen, but I still asked for xrays to be done. The xrays confirmed there was no blockage. It also showed her stomach was very empty and her small intestine appeared to show gas. The vet said it’s fairly normal and not to be concerned about that.

With a blockage ruled out she said that it could be a virus or of course salmonella since I feed raw. This wasn’t the vet who I was hoping to see, she was out, so this was the back up vet who I’m not to sure about yet. She seemed a bit put off when I said she was fed a raw diet so I expected the blame to be put on that and sure enough it pretty much was. 

She sent me home with some probiotics to give her (a paste for 3 days and capsules for 10 days). It’s called Proviable. Anyone with experience with that? She also said that if Abby continues to have these problems she wants to have her checked out for megaesophagus, but said that when these dogs vomit it’s usually within 30-60 minutes after eating. With Abby it was 3-4 hours later. So I don’t think that’s her problem.

So that’s pretty much the scoop as of right now. Abby’s doing a lot better. She was such a good girl at the vets. She’s still shy around strangers, but she was actually warming up to the staff there which was nice to see. Since coming home she’s been playing nonstop, until now. She finally settled down in bed for a nap. We’ll start up with feeding again in the morning.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

InkedMarie said:


> I hope she's OK! Not sure if i asked you this already but where are you in NH? I'm in Gilford.


Cool! I'm in Bedford. Where do you get your meats from?



kathylcsw said:


> Good luck. I hope it is not anything serious. She is beautiful by the way!


Thanks, but that's actually my 1 year old male in my avatar. I'll make a new avatar shortly so you can see her. She is beautiful too.


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## kathylcsw (Jul 31, 2011)

Glad to hear it was nothing serious.


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

I'm very happy to hear she's ok too. 
FWIW, when Mol was a wee pup of 12 weeks old, I started her on raw. She got sick, vomiting and diarreoah and of course the vet said it was raw, I listened to him because I thought he was the expert. Put her back on kibble/canned/cooked/raw. Then 6 months later, I found DFC and realised that there was no way it was raw food, I think she got a bug from drinking dirty water out of a puddle at the dog park. So back to full time raw we went. Big education for me that.
Very glad to hear she is ok, thats the main thing. The vet can't be too bad if she just gave probiotics and no drugs though. Hopefully it was just a oncer!


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

Glad she's better. I love your new avatar, how one does these things is way beyond me.


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## JayJayisme (Aug 2, 2009)

Glad she is coming around but looking at the meals you are giving her, all I can say is that if I gave my dogs such a small amount of bone, they would be having issues just like this. It looks like the only bone is coming from the turkey necks and the single chicken drumstick. That wouldn't be enough bone for even my little 17 lb. male, and definitely not enough for my 45 lb female. Have you introduced pork yet? I would add some chicken backs and/or pork spare ribs to get the bone to meat ratio up, especially if you are feeding organs daily.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

JayJayisme said:


> Glad she is coming around but looking at the meals you are giving her, all I can say is that if I gave my dogs such a small amount of bone, they would be having issues just like this. It looks like the only bone is coming from the turkey necks and the single chicken drumstick. That wouldn't be enough bone for even my little 17 lb. male, and definitely not enough for my 45 lb female. Have you introduced pork yet? I would add some chicken backs and/or pork spare ribs to get the bone to meat ratio up, especially if you are feeding organs daily.


I don't give organ daily. I do Mon, Wed, and Fri usually. My supplies ran low though so I grabbed what I could. They do get turkey necks or a whole chicken leg (not a drumstick) everyday. I alternate them every day. She's been on raw for about 3.5 months now and this has never been a problem. She's always had reliably firm stools. Same thing with my 60lb male. I do feed pork, but not bone in.


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## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

I would add some bone in pork also, like ribs. Couldn't hurt to up the bone some.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

OK, I'm a little confused. If my dogs have been doing great with my routine (for 6 months with Logan and 3.5 months with Abby), why would this one incident be because of too little bone? As I said, they've both consistantly had firm stools, healthy appetites, and no vomiting except for this one issue with Abby. Watching stools is what I thought we should be doing to gauge if they're getting enough bone or not enough. If that's true, my dogs are on the right track. 

If the numbers I found online are true, I'm actually feeding roughly the right amount of bone.

I found that chicken legs are 27% bone. The legs I get average about 10-11oz so that would be 2.7oz to 2.97oz of bone per leg. I also found that turkey necks are 42% bone. I typically feed about 12oz per meal so that would come out to 5.04oz per feeding. On the weeks where I feed turkey necks 3 days a week and chicken legs on 4 days a week it comes out to 15.12oz (.945lb for turkey) and 10.8oz to 11.88oz (.675lb. to 7425lb for chicken) for a grand total of 1.62lb to 1.6875lb per week or 6.48lb to 6.75lb per month.

Using the 80/10/10 rule and using 75lb as Logan's ideal adult weight, he should get roughly 7.5lb per month. Using the 80/10/10 rule and 65lb as Abby's ideal adult weight, she should get roughly 6.5lb per month. BUT, I also know that these are just guidelines that we should use our dog's stools as a way of telling if they're getting enough bone or not. I'm just concerned that if I up the bone content (when there was never a problem to begin with until now), that it cause constipation.

Please correct me if I'm doing math wrong somewhere along the way. Math was always my bad subject so it's 100% possible I screwed up somewhere along the way. It just puzzles me that lack of bone contect could be the problem when it's been smooth sailing for months up until now.

I will say that Abby did have an accident today while I was at work. She pooped on the floor which she's never done before. Yesterday's xray did show that she was holding some so I'm hoping this is the last of what was wrong. Personality wise, she's back to her normal self again and is a happy, bouncy girl. 

I'll definitely add more bone content if that's what you really think she needs, but I'm just really confused on why that would be the problem all of a sudden. Unless it was the liver, but again I don't usually feed organ back to back like I did. I have done so in the past with no problems so I'm not even sure that's the problem here either.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

Could you have gotten chicken that was enhanced? alot of dogs can't tolerate the sodium crap they add to make it more moist.


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

Nope. They've been eating out of the same package/order of chicken for over a month now with no problems.


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## InkedMarie (Sep 9, 2011)

Mandy said:


> Cool! I'm in Bedford. Where do you get your meats from?
> 
> )


I feed pre made raw, not pmr. Maybe someday. Is your supplier Tracy, the breeder of the dogue DF bourdeaux?


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## Mandy (Aug 30, 2012)

InkedMarie said:


> I feed pre made raw, not pmr. Maybe someday. Is your supplier Tracy, the breeder of the dogue DF bourdeaux?


No, I tried emailing her a few times when I was shopping around and never got a response. Then I found out about Top Quality Dog Food. They deliver less than 5 minutes from my house so I started ordering through them.


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

Glad she 's doing better. Not sure why you would need to add more bone either if there stool is fine, but lets not talk about math. I'm really bad.


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## InkedMarie (Sep 9, 2011)

Mandy said:


> No, I tried emailing her a few times when I was shopping around and never got a response. Then I found out about Top Quality Dog Food. They deliver less than 5 minutes from my house so I started ordering through them.


It took her awhile to respond to me, too. We're actually going to do grinds from Hare Today; I thought it was way more expensive than the pre made but it turns out to be cheaper and no fruits/veggies!


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