, 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
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