# Digestive Issues



## Ivy (Mar 16, 2011)

I've been having troubles with Hank for a long while now. Blood work came back fine but he's had diarrhea for a long time now. He lost his appetite completely and would only eat when he was hungry enough. I put him on a bland diet if boiled hamburger and rice and he gained his appetite back. He's also been maintaining his weight, i'd like him to add a couple pounds but it's not my priority at the moment. He's still has soft stools but at least I got him eating. 

I tried giving him metronidazole and it made his diarrhea so much worse. The Tylosin worked well but once he was finished the soft stools returned. The probiotics are not working either. I will be changing his food to NV, someone told me that many dogs that had soft stools did well on it so i'm going to give it a try.

The vet gave Hank Fortiflora. Are there alternates out there? Would a probiotic (plain) yogurt work the same? I was reading that not all dogs respond well to just any probiotic given and an alternate could be tried. I'm just trying to plan in case the combo of Fortiflora and NV don't work. 
If nothing is working after the food change and probiotics, i'm going to talk with the vet about trying Tylosin again.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Has he had a fecal done?


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## Ivy (Mar 16, 2011)

Yes he did. The vet gave him two rounds of dewormer just to be safe.

We're not sure if it's IBD, IBS, SIBO or something similar.


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## Losech (Jul 10, 2012)

I use a human-grade probiotic, shelf stable powdered type. Yogurt never seemed to work, but the probiotic does. More concentrated I guess. (Yogurt can cause runny stools in some dogs, another reason why I don't use it for that.) I also use ground roasted chicory root, which is a prebiotic, basically food for the probiotics. It gives it a boost. I will use one or the other for soft stools, or if it's a bad issue, both combined. Works pretty good for my dog, who has quite a history of digestive problems. (If you are curious, I've got scientific data to back up my claims.)


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

Forgive my ignorance, I haven't been around much lately so I have NO idea what you generally feed. I have experience with dogs with digestive issues like this though, I had a Corgi with SIBO, and it's NOT fun to deal with. We were able to narrow it down to it being the carbohydrates in his diet (at the time he was eating EVO) aggravating his system. He had liquid bloody diarrhea for 7 or so months and his body was literally starving to death from malnourishment. The antibiotics and mess the doctor prescribed didn't help and only made him vomit as well. 
The vet recommended an expensive "low residue" prescription diet and steroid treatments to keep it under control. Instead, I just removed carbohydrates from his diet as best I could since dogs have no nutritional need for them anyway. Within three days, he had solid stool for literally the FIRST time in his life, and within a month he was a healthy weight, and we never looked back. PMR saved his life, no doubt about it.


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## Ivy (Mar 16, 2011)

Losech - where do you get roasted chicory root? How much would I give a 43lbs dog? I'd love to see the scienfifc data. Not because I don't trust you but because I find it interesting. You can PM me :smile:

Corgi Paws - I do not feed Hank PMR. I would like to have him on it but he did so miserably bad the 2 times i've tried. He currently on a bland diet, at least the diarreah is gone but he's still got soft stools.


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