The canned dog food caused my dog to have diarrhea?

2015. Feb. 3

My dog, Big Steve, got pancreatitis last year, due to some unknown cause. Since then, we had to give him prescribed canned dog food. I wrote about it here. We are still giving him the prescribed canned dog food (GI low fat), but since his pancreatitis seemed to have improved, we decided to try some new food. We started to give him Trader Joe’s canned food. I wrote about it here.  He loved it, so we’ve been giving him a combination of Trader Joe’s canned dog food and prescribed canned food since then.

One day I found the place that I can order GI low fat canned dog food online. Since GI low fat is prescribed canned dog food, we needed to send them a doctor’s note.  One day, I ordered GI low fat online, but after they took my order, they told me that they ran out of GI and they don’t even know when they will have it again. I didn’t know what that means, but we had to give him only Trader Joe’s canned food (chunky beef dinner) for a while.

We noticed that he’s been gassy since then and seemed like his stomach was bothering him.  His stool became really soft like diarrhea. One night, he even needed to go out to poop in the middle of the night. He had explosive diarrhea. Despite all of these conditions, he still had his usual appetite and acted normal. He barked at another dog on the street and sometimes ran around happily.

We weren’t sure what was the cause of these conditions at that time. Big Steve had been in this condition for weeks. Poor Big Steve…

One day, I suddenly realized that my dog’s fart smelled like the Trader Joe’s canned food(chunky beef dinner). We’ve been giving him Trader Joe’s canned food for months, and he never had any problems, but I decided to stop giving him Trader Joe’s canned food completely.

The next day, his stool became much better, and the day after that, he is completely recovered from all these bad conditions. No fart, no diarrhea anymore.

I wonder why this happened to my dog? Is this because of Trader Joe’s canned dog food? Or it’s just Trader Joe’s canned dog food are not going to work for my dog? But why suddenly? Or did Trader Joe’s changed how to produce the canned dog food? It’s a mystery to me…

Depression? New Canned food

2014 Aug. 4th

Big Steve seems depressed lately.  I see him licking his paw and chewing. He also refuses to eat sometimes.

My husband and I are on summer vacation and there were times we needed to board him to dog sitters. It works well with some cases, but there are cases it won’t work. The day before we leave home, Big Steve already knows we are going somewhere, but he just doesn’t know if we are taking him with us. So he must be so stressed out.

This summer, we visited my family in Japan for the first time in 6 or 7 years. We needed to board Big Steve to one of our dog sitters during the trip. It worked pretty good! He loved being there. She, the sitter, always has many dogs boarding at her house, so Big Steve can play with them. He was a happy dog when we came back from Japan.

Now there are other times we needed to board him with other sitters. When we pick Big Steve up from these sitters, he doesn’t seem so happy. Even the day we took him to one of my sitter’s house, he throw up.

So we try to take him to dog park often so that he can social with other dogs. He seems like having a good time at the dog park, but he seems not so happy after returning home.

As his owners, we think what we can do to make him happy. I realized how he is probably bored of his prescribed canned food. Vet told us only give him that prescribed canned food, GI Low fat, but I asked vet if we could give him other food. Usually, vet seems like not so sure what’s okay and what’s not. Well, I can understand why that is so because every dog is different, and we just don’t want to take any risk. However we know about Big Steve better than vet, and there are some time we, owner, need to decide what to give to make our dog happy.

Today, I found this new canned food called “Chopped Lamb & Rice Dinner – Premium dog food with vegetables” at Trader Joe’s.  Ingredients are good and contains only 4% min of crude fat. It’s kind of difficult to find a good low fat canned food, but I though this may be good for Big Steve, so we bought it.

We added some of this canned food to his prescribed canned food, and he loved it so much! He seems happier!! 🙂 We need to keep an eye on his diet, but I hope this helps his stress.

The following picture is the new canned food we are giving to Big Steve. It’s good!

 

Big Steve lost his weight?

May 27th 2014

Big Steve has been eating GI low fat canned food since this April. I can see he lost his weight. When I touch around his berry, I can stretch his belly skin. Whenever I go to the kitchen, he comes with me expecting he could get some food.

Since he got some rash (because of food?), I didn’t want to risk anything to cause any health problem on him. So I only give him what his vet told me that I can give him.

Today, I called the vet to ask if I can give him steamed sweet potatoes and carrots. They said that I can give him both of them. So, I started to give him seamed sweet potatoes!

Start adding SO to his food again.

May 16th 2014

Today, I went to the Vet to get his GI low fat canned food. Big Steve’s primary vet told me that I should start to give him SO again. I was a bit surprised to be told to do so since Big Steve had rash that was unsure of an exact cause. I asked them if there are other urinary healthy type of canned food. They told me that there are some brand, but they all are kind of high fat content.

I had no choice but to start to add few SO to his GI low fat canned food again.

He has gotten a lot better from Pancreatitis, but He has skin rash now.

4/28/2014

Because the vet found tiny amount of crystal in his urine, they gave us a sample of Urinary SO, the one it’s a moderate calorie from Royal Canin. They  wanted me to switch to Urinary SO slowly, so I’m adding a little bit of Urinary SO to his GI low fat canned food diet. Vet recommend us to give him a lot of water. 600mg is recommended for his size. However, he won’t drink water. So I’m giving him food with water I am measuring each time. He’s been getting a lot of water now!:)

5/5/2014

He liked the food, and now his urine color looks normal, and I can tell he is doing great just by looking at him. He had his blood test on May 5th, and result came out 100% normal and it looks great. So vet told me to stop the remaining medication that I have been giving to him, Denamarin andUrsodiol.

5/8 (Thursday)

Big Steve threw up this morning. I know he was licking himself from 2 to 3 am last night. I took him out to pee. After that he went to sleep. However, at 6:00 am this morning, he threw up. He was also scratching himself.

At around 4:00 pm, my husband found that Big Steve had some hives on his skin. So, we gave him ½ tablet of allergy pill(12.5mg) since we remembered in the past when Big Steve had allergy reaction, the vet told us to give him a ½ tablet of Benadryl. After that, I called the vet to tell about it. The nurse asked me if I could take him to the vet soon, so I took him to the vet immediately.

Big Steve’s vet was not at the office today, so the other DR. had to learn about him and examined him.

The vet was not sure the reason of all this or why he threw up, but he suspect food allergy, chicken? wheat? in Urinary SO… or other allergy?

The instruction I got was as followed.

1. Continue Benadryl (Diphenhydramine) non-cold formula 25mg 1 tablet every 8 hours until hives resolve
2. Give ½ Benadryl when I get home (since I already gave ½ tablet)
3. Give 5mg prednisolone tonight (We usually give him prednisolone 2.5mg on Mon. and Friday)

Anyway Big Steve’s vet is gonna be at office tomorrow and we’ll talk about Big Steve.

BTW, he is not scratching himself anymore and sleeping now. Also his hives has almost all gone already. Great!

 

Pancreatitis

It’s been a long time since the last post. Big Steve has been doing great and enjoy the weather in here and some social time at dog park every weekend. Today, I just want to update his medical history.

Feb. 17 2014

Big Steve had to take his teeth out. He took 10 teeth out! (>_<。)

 

Mar. 20th 2014

Big Steve throw up twice at night.

Mar. 21st 2014

He didn’t have much apatite. He also had a soft stool around that time, so we thought something must bothered his stomach.

Mar. 24th 2014

He was eating fine but looked a bit lethargic and his fart smelled bad.

Some time that week we noticed his pee color looked a bit darker yellow.

April 1st 2014

I took Big Steve to his vet. The vet said he has jaundice. His eyes and ear color got yellowish. After the exam and hearing my explanation about what is going on with Big Steve, he checked his blood and took X-Ray. The vet told me that vomiting, stinky fart, and loss of apatite may indicate liver damage.  However, the result of blood test and X-Ray didn’t show the damage of his liver. In order to find the problem, Big Steve needed to take ultrasound. Since the vet didn’t have the machine, I took him to another vet close by.

That day I got Clavamox 1/2 every 12 hours and Denamarin 1 tablet with empty stomach 1 hour before meal everyday. Clavamox is Antibiotic and used for Bacterial infections. Denamarin is for his liver.

April 4th 2014

Big Steve got ultrasound. The vet found out that Big Steve has pancreatitis that could cause liver damage or gallbladder problem. The vet told us to keep the medications we got from our primary vet and also added 2 more pills.

Ursodiol 1/2 every day and Cerenia 1 tablet for 4 days. Ursodiol is used to dissolve gallstones. Cerenia is used for antinausea.

I attached the part of the document I received from the vet.
*Prednisolone is a pill Big Steve has been taking since he has autoimmune hemolytic anemia.

We also got some sample of low fat canned food from the vet. It contains crude fat (min)1% ~ crude fat(max)2.5%. This is a very low fat content, but I also see by-products listed as an ingredient. So I tried to find a low fat canned food without by-product at pet food express which is known as a healthy pet food store. However, the best I could find was crude fat (min) 3%. I put photo of the canned food I got at the vet and the label. Hope you can see it.

BTW, Big Steve really loved it and got his apatite back!

 

April 6th 2014.

I could see his jaundice has gotten better.

April 7th 2014.

I went to the vet to get 4 more Cerenias.

April 16th 2014.

I still give him a low fat canned food the best I can find at pet food express. He loves it! I called the 2nd vet as I was directed to do so. The person I talked to told me that Big Steve need to be checked the chemistry, PCB. I had no idea what that means. She didn’t explained what that is, but she said the vet will know what that is… Since she told me that I can take him to his primary vet, I brought Big Steve to his primary vet to check his blood. The result showed his condition has gotten a lot better, but still not the normal level.

April 18th 2014.

Big Steve is not peeing enough as usual and my husband was so worried about him, so we took Big Steve to our primary vet today. They took his urine sample to check if there is any sand, crystal, blood… What they did was put the tube in his penis and if it doesn’t go through that means there are something piling up, but the tube went through which was a good news. They will call and let  us know the result and the course of treatment tomorrow.

I also bought more low fat canned food at this vet since the price was lower here than the other vet.