Desperate please help!!!

[Lyn1Lyn]

, So I am sitting at my computer right now and it is 3:51am and I am writing out of shear desperation for some help... (probably a bit more dramatic than necessary, but please bear with me) I will make it as short as possible...

Preface: Zeus was at the puppy hotel last week and the owner said he did wonderfully.. He ate all the meals sent for him well and did great with the other puppies..
Zeus is a 4 month old EM and is up to date on all shots and is on Interceptor for heart and intestinal parasites....
He is on a Raw Meaty Bones diet and eats no grains

Fast forward, The evening he returned from the puppy hotel he woke me in the middle of the night to take him out (which he never does).. He had yellowish watery diarrhea..This continued on all day friday, at which point sunday I called the puppy hotel and questioned what his meals had been thursday as i didn't quite remember what I had given him.. (sometimes liver makes his stools a little looses)... I explained what was going on and she stated that he did have some loose stool Wednesday evening... again i chalked it up to diet, and stress and the possibility that he was provided with treats from the puppy bakery that his system probably couldn't process (total my fault, forgot to explain to her that he eats no grains), also I noticed that he had gone thru his entire bag of grainfree treats in 4 days (a bag generally lasts 1.5 weeks in my house)...

So I decided to try to solidify his stool by adding a bit more bone to his meals... By Sunday morning we were back to solid stools and I allowed him to have rice and chicken for lunch and dinner to help keep it solid.... Much to my dismay the diarrhea came back later that evening, with again mostly watery stools... I chalked this up to the possibility that maybe I should have just continued adding additional bone to the diet instead of the rice (as he hasn't had rice befor)......

Monday I decided to fast him for 24 hours with access to water only...

Tuesday I went back to Turkey necks for breakfast as they are very high in bone content and should help get him back to normal... As well as a few tablespoons of pumpkin flesh. THis has helped get his stools back to a mushy textured, no more watery stools!!!! YAY!!!!

I MIGHT ADD THAT ALL THIS TIME ZEUS HAS REMAINED HIS ENEREGETIC PLAYFUL SELF...SLEEPING, DRINKING AND EATING WELL...

Now comes the real problem.... I am extremely frustrated with him over the last 24 hrs... Starting last night (Tuesday) I put him in his pen in my room in his bed as usual at about 11pm.... I came in at about 1am to go to bed and smelled poop... I immediately turned on the light and went to check his pen.. It appeared clean, but as I moved stuff around I realized that he had pooped in his pen and covered it up with his sleeping cushion.... It wasn't diarrhea, it was that mushy lumpy textured... Nothin he hasn't previously held in... So I removed him from his pen and put him in his crate in the living room so I could clean up his mess.. I got up at my regular time about 7:30am to take him outside and again smelled poop in his crate.... as soon as i opened my bedroom door I smelled poop and went to check him in his crate.. There were no signs of poop so I took him outside... When I returned the smell of poop was still strong, after moving stuff around in his crate I realized that he had pooped and covered it up with a towel... thats why i didn't see it immediately... I cleaned his crate and put the divider back in... making it just big enough for him to turn around a little and put him back in.. About an hour later I went into my room to do something and when I returned again there was poop (this time back to diarrhea) and he decided to sit in it....I cleaned it up and put him back in..... About and hour later, I caught him trying to do it again... this time I was able to get him outside...

I continued his boney diet with water throughout the day and there were no more accidents. We took him out every hour... but he didn't poop again, just pee.... Until this evening when my son took him outside to potty... about 10 minutes after going outside he came back in and went again in his crate... It was back to a more normal consistency..Nothing he couldn't hold in...... I was at work but my husband told me he gave no warning.. my daughter said he circled and then squatted while looking at her.. again no warning.


When I got home I took out the crate tray and bleached it well, before returning it to its place and putting him back in...Now taking him outside every 1/2 hour or so.... He was doing fine until I went to bed at 1:30am. (had taken him out at 1:15am) I even put a baby monitor near his cage so I could hear him... I woke at 3:15 to take him out (I only had to get up with him at this hour when he first got here at 9 weeks otherwise he sleeps 11pm to 9:30/10am..) and again more (solid mush) poop in the cage and he only started whining when he heard my bedroom door open... I am soooooooooo frustrated at this point... He has never ever pooped in his crate or pen since I got him, and if he needed to go out he would wake me up and I would take him out (on the rare occasion)....

At this point I am not sure if this is a behavior he has learned or a result of the diarrhea he has been working with...

I called the vet earlier and they said the likelyhood of it being a parasite while on Interceptor is rare and a fecal sampling probably wouldn't help.. They said try to level out the diet and see if that helps the poop... But they were unable to answer why he would be suddenly pooping in his cage....

So this is what I'v done..... I planned to go out tomorrow to get a smaller cage that he couldn't stand up in to train him back to knowing HE IS CRATE TRAINED.... I figure if he can't stand in it he can't poop in it... Not sure if this is correct but I am just fearing that now he thinks this is his pooping place instead of outside... So now at 3:15 in the morning I decided to use my broom, mop, dustpan and 2 floor boards to place thru the grate of his cage to make it so he can't stand up... I am going to take him out every hour until morning... Hope this helps... I feel like I'm being cruel, but this is getting out of hand really quickly.... tomorrow I'm going to have to take him to get bathed because of all the times he stepped in and sat in his poop today...
I am at a total loss....


Please help... ANYBODY

I am now going to take him out again and attempt to get some sleep...



Sorry its so long... Thanks for reading

 

[Caleb]

Sorry for your troubles. Hopefully someone more knowledgable than I will chime in here, but since Im awake, I will give my 2 cents...If its even worth that. Im no behaviour expert, but I think its obvious that your dogs bowels are irritated. I know that some dogs will get ill from an irritable bowel, even fully trained house dogs, and do things beside themselves while they are having the problem, and once they get thru it, they return to training. Sorry...thats all Ive got. Hope you get some help. Good luck.

 

[Tibleti]

Our vet suggested using small doses of pepto bismol if it seemed that our EM's stomach was overly upset. (Small being half to a whole dose for a child and spaced further apart. And pepto only, no other human meds.) We did not crate train, so I am sorry that I cannot be of more help.

 

[Caleb]

Not only that, but 4 months is a young and awkward time for an EM. I would imagine that there are gonna be some bumps in the road. I doubt that he is doing anything out of spite because dogs hate pooping in their bed....and I might keep him out of the doggie hotel for a while.

 

[moose]

Dogs should be able to stand in their crate. Try giving him some pumpkin, not the filling but the 100% to harden up his poops. The behavior thing is weird but like other said 4 months is a weird time and its probably linked to something in the doggie hotel.

 

[Cody]

I would put him on a diet of boiled chicken meat, rice, sweet potato w/a bit of pumpkin and yogurt as well for a few days until he is solid. I know he is grain free, but it will help harden the stool better then bone, it will also calm their stomachs. Is a short term thing.
Not just for a meal or a day, but until he is solid consistently. Also in the house keep him on a leash, so if it looks like he is smelling around at all you can get him out asap.
Have you bleached out his crate to be sure there are no lingering odors? Dogs will return to the same place to defecate.
By the fact that he tried to bury it, it showed he didn't want it in his kennel to begin with.
I wouldn't stop him from being able to stand in his crate personally.
Feed him his last meal early in the day, then get him out as late as you can.
Good luck.
Let us know what the vet says.

 

[Lyn1Lyn]

Thanks for all the advice... I spoke to his breeder this morning and she gave me some advice.. So I am going to try and see if any of her suggestions work... Wish me luck... No accidents today.. He whined for someone to take him outside.. And went poop out there... Hopefully thats a good sign..

 

[Fixer]

I doubt he *wants* to poop in his crate, he's feeling ill and has no other choice! Haven't you ever had a stomach ailment and you can barely make it to a bathroom before your insides explode? He's no different, except that he is locked in a crate and can't do anything about it. I don't see how putting him in a smaller crate is going to help anything. changing his diet and getting his stomach settled is step 1, giving him those numerous trips outside is step 2 (including overnight trips). Yep, it sucks to get up all night long to let him out, but he is totally dependent on you for this.

Good luck, stay calm & sane about it, this too shall pass.

 

[JennQ]

I totally agree with most of what everyone has said!! Dogs in general will not poop/pee where they sleep, more oftern than not (90%) of the time if they do go in their "den" it is because they could not hold it in! I would do the plain boiled chicken and 100% pure pumpkin for a day or two if his breeders suggestions do not work. Boscoe (BM) would get the same symptoms on a regular basis because his bowels were always irritated, and even though he was grain free as well, when his bowels were acting up I would take him off his regular food and then feed him 2 two small meals a day for a couple days or until his poops were "normal", i would feed him brown rice, plain cooked chicken, about 2 tblsp of 100% pure pumpkin and a little bit of probiotic yorgurt. it worked great!! Good luck!

 

[PuppyPaws]

I totally agree with most of what everyone has said!! Dogs in general will not poop/pee where they sleep, more oftern than not (90%) of the time if they do go in their "den" it is because they could not hold it in! I would do the plain boiled chicken and 100% pure pumpkin for a day or two if his breeders suggestions do not work. Boscoe (BM) would get the same symptoms on a regular basis because his bowels were always irritated, and even though he was grain free as well, when his bowels were acting up I would take him off his regular food and then feed him 2 two small meals a day for a couple days or until his poops were "normal", i would feed him brown rice, plain cooked chicken, about 2 tblsp of 100% pure pumpkin and a little bit of probiotic yorgurt. it worked great!! Good luck!

I agree with this and with most of what the others said. I don't think he wants to go in his crate. I think covering it up is a sign that he wasn't pleased with it. I think the puppy hotel played a part as well as the bit about all the treats being gone that usually last a week and a half. Also, I would not limit his ability to stand. I don't think that has anything to do with his bowels. If his stomach is upset, he can't control it and changing the size of the crate won't help. It may even interfere with his compliance with getting into the crate in the first place. That would give you a whole other set of issues to deal with. Just be patient. do the pumpkin and/or yogurt in small meals. Take him out very regularly, keep him supervised and on a leash and keep in contact with a vet. Just hang in there. I hope he is improving and gets over this quickly.

 

[Ripsmom]

if you tried the bland diet for a day or so and still have no improvement if the dog is acting normal it sounds like he could have whipworm, coccidea or giardia, all of which need to be treated with meds and while coccidea and giardia are easy to test for, whipworm doesn't always show up in a stool sample. just because he's on heartworm preventative doesn't mean the whipworm would be controlled as the amount of dewormer in the pills works well for preventing the dog from becoming infested but if the dog was already infested with a fair amount of worms then the heartworm pill will not be enough to treat it. If it were my dog I would panacur him for three days and if you see an improvement it is most likely a worm then it would need to repeated again for another three days in 3 weeks. If there is no improvement then you should have the vet do a stool sample to check for coccidea and giardia or you could do the stoll sample first and if he is negative for coccidea and giardia ask the vet for panacur. I would not suggest waiting too long to treat him since any of these can rip though a puppy and really debilitate them

 

[Lyn1Lyn]

UPDATE::::
Zeus is absolutely fine now, no thanks to his vet (who wouldn't test a stool sample but wanted me to adjust him back to his regular diet first and see if that worked) ... But thank God for his breeder.. On Thursday morning I called her and explained the situation, she stated that she was sure by what I described that he had a bacteria (e-coli or salmonella to be exact), she said there's no way to know how he got it, it could be from his food, it could be from unsanitary practices at the puppy hotel, he could have gotten it from dishes that weren't cleaned properly etc....
But thanks to her it was cured almost immediately with the ammoxicillan (sp) and yogurt with added probiotics that she suggested.. He took his first dose that morning and by evening his stool was back to normal...

I did use a smaller crate for the 2 nts following my original post and he held it just fine without pooping in his crate until I let him out in the morning to go outside. Although I did check on him several times during the night, and he was in several different positions throughout the night (meaning he was able to change positions just fine) and sleeping soundly, and I had a baby monitor next to him in case of anything.

As per my breeders advice, he has stayed on his regular RMB diet throughout the last several days, as she believed that the rice in the bland diet only made the situation worse (as I originally thought).. She said his regular diet and add the yogurt 3x's a day.. Give him 500mg of Amox 2x/day for 5 days preferably 10..

Anyway he still has some days of antibiotics left to go... But he has recovered just fine....

Oh and PS.... I am now looking for a new vets office..

Thanks for all your responses

 

[PuppyPaws]

I will never understand why some vets refuse to do a simple urine or fecal test at the owner's request. When you run into one of those vets, go looking elsewhere. Good decision on your part. My mom got a dog a few year's back (in the end it ended up back in our family but that's another story) from a shelter. Got her wormed and spayed. She was doing well. Mom took her to the vet they said they did a stool sample and no worms. About a week later, she had runny stools and started eating less. Mom took her to the vet asked for another stool sample. Vet said no and just feed her a bland diet. Mom did so. It grew worse and worse. Mom called the vet and was she was instructed to just feed her some raw eggs and give her some time. She became lethargic and worse. My mom lived 3 hours away at the time. I came home one weekend and took one look at the pup and was immediately concerned. The next morning I called my husband and asked him to meet me halfway and come get her to take to our vet. From 3 hours away, he didn't understand and thought I was crazy. I then told that I would drive the whole way back home with her then. He knew I was serious and agreed to meet me. Once he saw her, he understood. He was even worried that she might not make it. he got her there. The vet did a stool sample. She was INFESTED with hookworms and whipworms. Worst case he had ever seen. He gave her a blood transfusion using his own dog and said it was still 50%/50% whether she made it or not. She did. The next morning she was awake and even wagging her tail. All because some vet refused to do a stool sample and LISTEN to an owners very rational concerns. Ugghhhh. Run Away, if they won't honor a simple request such as a urine or stool sample test. Sooo glad you got yours the help needed. Good for you for continuing the search for help!!! Hope you find a vet you are pleased with soon!