# Help! Clear Water-like Poops



## unloader

I couldn't find any reference about clear water like bowel movements, so I am asking for everyone's help.

We have been weening him to Wellness LBP(started Sunday). He is eating close to 1/3cup wellness and 2/3 TOTW as of today. We did a lot of training yesterday with zuke salmon mini's and chicken mini's. Not sure if any of this could contribute, but needed to make sure to give all the info.

He only ate a light breakfast, about 1/4 of a cup.

*S*ince 1pm today, Remy's poop started to get progressively worse (it was already pudding to begin with). It started an hour or so after he had lunch. They started getting more runny each time he needed to go out. In a 3 hour timeframe, he had 7 bowel movements. 

Around 3pm he threw up his food, he vomited twice in a row each time with food coming up.

His poops are now basically like a water dripping out. There are some runny poops that are the normal brown color mixed in, but mainly he just drips out "water" and is in the poop position for a while and multiple times.

I have spoken to my vet and he said that as long as the dog is acting alright and not laying on the floor not moving at all, he should be ok. 

The pup will get up and shows interest in food, but I haven't fed him since lunch. I can get him to wag his tail, but it's pretty tough. 

I'm not sure if I should take him to the vet tonight or not. They are open until 9pm est tonight.

Please help! Thanks in advance!


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## Cassidy's Mom

Liquid diarrhea and vomiting? I'd take him right in. Puppies can dehydrate very quickly. It could be something as routine and treatable as giardia or as serious and life threatening as parvo. I personally would not wait until he's laying on the floor and not moving and it surprises me that your vet would advise that. Is he acting totally normal - active and playful? Or is he acting like maybe he doesn't feel well?


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## Asche-zu-Staub

My Stauba had that same deal. She had gotten into something with out me knowing. She had to have an antibiotic shot and take medication for a week. It can be VERY serious if they get dehydrated. I would bring em in.

alot more people on here than me know much much more so I'll leave the rest to them...just sharing my experience.


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## unloader

There isn't much coming out in terms of poop. He is not his active playful self and is acting like a person that has a bad upset GI tract. Frequent trips to the bathroom and lethargy. 

I have been having him drink and his urine seems on the light side in terms of color.


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## JudynRich

I would get him to the vet. Vomitting and runny stools is a sign of trouble!


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## unloader

Thanks for the quick responses, I have a vet appt at 8pm tonight. 

I didn't think parvo presented itself like this?

I'll try to update when I get back from the vet.

Thanks again!


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## Cassidy's Mom

Canine parvovirus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



> Signs and symptoms
> Dogs that develop the disease show symptoms of the illness within 5 to 10 days. The symptoms include lethargy, vomiting, fever, and diarrhea (usually bloody). Diarrhea and vomiting result in dehydration and secondary infections can set in. Due to dehydration, the dog's electrolyte balance can become critically affected. Because the normal intestinal lining is also compromised, blood and protein leak into the intestines leading to anemia and loss of protein, and endotoxins escaping into the bloodstream, causing endotoxemia. Dogs have a distinctive odor in the later stages of the infection. The white blood cell level falls, further weakening the dog. Any or all of these factors can lead to shock and death.[19] The first sign of CPV is lethargy. If your dog is sitting in the corner of the room and not wanting to play get them to the vet immediately, they are not trying to look "cute". Usually the second symptoms would be loss of appetite or diarrhea followed by vomiting.


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## arycrest

I hate it when puppies get sick. PLEASE keep us updated as to what the vet said and how your pup is feeling!!!


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## IllinoisNative

My puppy had parvo and that's exactly what it sounds like. He started vomiting at 7:00 am (I had only had him four days) and I was at the vet at 8:00 am. I caught it immediately and he was fine. He is now a healthy seven years old.

I hope it's not parvo.


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## Anja1Blue

I've never known a vet who, given the symptoms you described, wouldn't say bring him right in. As the above posts so rightly say puppies can become dehydrated very quickly. Take him in and do let us know what the diagnosis is - and in the meantime it might not hurt to look for another vet. Here's hoping for a quick recovery for your little guy.........
__________________________________
Susan

Anja SchH3 GSD
Conor GSD
Blue BH WH T1 GSD - waiting at the Bridge


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## AvaLaRue

Just curious if we have an update on this since the vet appointment last night??!!? Hope everything is ok.


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## 4loveofadog

hi unloader - i hope everything went well with remy and there is nothing seriously wrong. i, too, would look for another vet. he should have asked you to bring him right in. i know my pup was given purina fortiflora when he went for his first check up and has been on one package a day. it makes his stool normal. you may want to ask the vet about this.


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## unloader

Hi all, thank you for your concern!

We had to go to the e-vet because the xray machine wouldn't work at our vet. Ugh, just one more thing to add I guess. 

We were at the e-vet until midnight due to multiple dogs getting hit by cars and other dogs flying out the window in a crash.  The one dog that flew out was alright and was wagging his tail when his people were taking him home. 

The e-vet tested for parvo. Negative! Would having the parvo vaccine last friday affect the test in any way? Are there ever false negatives?

They x-ray'd him and that as well came back normal with a small amount of gas in his small intestine. 

They gave him subcutaneous fluids(he looked like quasimoto), as well as an anti-vomit injection. The put him on flagyl, 2 times a day for 7 days.

They recommended keeping him over night so they could monitor him and run a full blood panel, but I didn't think that would be good, he was already stressed enough. Anytime he is away from us he whines like crazy, so leaving him there would have made him worse in my opinion. 

He slept through the night and woke up a bit more playful. The poops are brown mucus this morning, so we will see how he progresses today.

The e-vet told me to give him canned Hill's I/D,  The ingredients didn't seem THAT bad. He ate about 1.5 tbsp and drank water this morning. 

Since I can't be home with him today, my dad is coming to my house to watch him for a couple hours to make sure he is showing improvement. I hope he continues!

The puppy did drink some pond water out of my dad's koi pond last saturday, but their dog always drinks out of it and hasn't had any issues before. Would anyone suspect that this could be a contributing factor?

I will still look around for another vet. Are there any that specialize in GSDs? Should I look for an internist? Not really sure where to start, maybe I should start another thread for this. 

Thank you again to everyone that responded so quickly!


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## JKlatsky

There are not usually vets that "specialize" in GSDs...but if there are breeders in your area that use a particular vet you can bet that those vets get a lot of GSD traffic. My favorite vets are more like "country" vets and I also like the ones that serve the Police K9s. My vet right now does all the Xrays and Repro work for all the GSD folks in this section of Florida. She's about 45 minutes away, but I like her. 

I have a vet down the road that I will use for routine/emergency things but they're a little more "pet" geared which means that they tend to have a low opinion of owners and a high opinion of themselves. They like to lecture me about stuff like neutering which always gets on my nerves. 

We just had Tag in to get his 3rd distemper Parvo and the vet said that he seemed pretty friendly which is good because Shepherds are usually so skittish...which always insprires 2 different feelings in me. I either never want to go back because they clearly do not know anything about how my breed is supposed to be...or I want to haul all 5 of my dogs in so they can see what GSDs are supposed to be.


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## GSD MOM

When Nellie had EPI we went to the E-vet and paid $600 to get nothing. They said she was fine nothing wrong and we took her home. When the water stool and black stool started we called her reg vet and brought her in. Still took almost 5 weeks to figure out what it was. I would be calling around to your local vets. See if any of them deal with a lot of GSD's or even have them. Nellie and Ace's vet has had GSD's her whole life. I love talking to her about our dog's because I know she understands..


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## jakeandrenee

I say haul them all back....then never go back...
I also need a good vet, using the Banfield clinic for basic puppy care,,,I can already tell they don't care for his breed. 

Glad to hear the pup is on the mend...


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## Cassidy's Mom

unloader said:


> The e-vet tested for parvo. Negative! Would having the parvo vaccine last friday affect the test in any way? Are there ever false negatives?


Don't know about that, but I'd think it would be more likely that you'd see a false positive. But again, I don't know a lot about the parvo test. You could try doing a search if you're concerned. 



> They gave him subcutaneous fluids(he looked like quasimoto), as well as an anti-vomit injection. The put him on flagyl, 2 times a day for 7 days.
> 
> They recommended keeping him over night so they could monitor him and run a full blood panel, but I didn't think that would be good, he was already stressed enough.


The fluids and injection should help prevent dehydration, so I don't see any reason why he should have stayed overnight either. Flagyl is the same as Metronidazole:

*Metronidazole is an antibiotic that is used commonly to treat protozoal infections and anaerobic bacterial infections. It also has anti-inflammatory effects in the bowel. * 

If he's got giardia, that should take care of it, it's the usual treatment. 



> The puppy did drink some pond water out of my dad's koi pond last saturday, but their dog always drinks out of it and hasn't had any issues before. Would anyone suspect that this could be a contributing factor?


Yes! He could very well have picked up giardia from the pond. They could have tested him for it, but the usual test is not that accurate. The giardia antigen test (usually you have to specifically ask for it) is better, but obviously they decided to go ahead and treat him for it, which I think is fine. Even if it's not giardia, a week of flagyl isn't going to hurt him, and is probably costing you less than the test would have.


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## unloader

Thank you Debbie! I will do some searching about the Parvo possibility of a false negative.

I couldn't remember Metronidazole, so I just said Flagyl which I knew was the same thing. On the vet records it says Metronidazole.

No more pond water for him! I had a feeling when I saw him drink it last weekend it wasn't going to help him any! 

Thanks for everyone's help and support again, I will update again soon!


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## Cassidy's Mom

The only reason that a vet with lots of GSD experience might be helpful is for things like EPI and SIBO, which are much more common in GSDs than most other breeds. Even a very experienced vet who has been practicing a long time (like mine) may not know a lot about those problems because they just haven't encountered them much in their other patients. But as long as you as a pet owner are aware of the kind of things that are common in our breed I think that's good enough. 

When Keefer had digestive issues as a puppy I had heard about EPI and SIBO here on the board, as well as the giardia antigen test, and I printed out info and brought it in with me for my vet to read when I specifically asked for those tests to be run. There are SO many potential causes for digestive upset (including non-medical reasons such as food allergies and intolerance) that it can be very difficult to diagnose and is often a process of elimination. They didn't even have the EPI test in their database, they had to look it up in a book of available tests provided by the lab in order to know how much to charge me. He was negative for EPI, but although every kind of fecal test known to man had come up negative, including the regular giardia test, Keef got a positive on the antigen test, and also for SIBO. My vet may never have even run those tests if I hadn't known about them and asked for them. Even with his 35 years of practice, they just weren't on his radar because they are so specific to GSDs.


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## Cassidy's Mom

Michael, I can never remember how to spell metro either, I always have to look it up! And I'm still not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly either, so I usually just say flagyl too!


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## unloader

Cassidy's Mom said:


> The only reason that a vet with lots of GSD experience might be helpful is for things like EPI and SIBO, which are much more common in GSDs than most other breeds. Even a very experienced vet who has been practicing a long time (like mine) may not know a lot about those problems because they just haven't encountered them much in their other patients. But as long as you as a pet owner are aware of the kind of things that are common in our breed I think that's good enough.
> 
> When Keefer had digestive issues as a puppy I had heard about EPI and SIBO here on the board, as well as the giardia antigen test, and I printed out info and brought it in with me for my vet to read when I specifically asked for those tests to be run. There are SO many potential causes for digestive upset (including non-medical reasons such as food allergies and intolerance) that it can be very difficult to diagnose and is often a process of elimination. They didn't even have the EPI test in their database, they had to look it up in a book of available tests provided by the lab in order to know how much to charge me. He was negative for EPI, but although every kind of fecal test known to man had come up negative, including the regular giardia test, Keef got a positive on the antigen test, and also for SIBO. My vet may never have even run those tests if I hadn't known about them and asked for them. Even with his 35 years of practice, they just weren't on his radar because they are so specific to GSDs.


My family has been using this vet for 25 years, I think he really knows a lot, and made me aware of the key indicators. He is a "country" type vet, he has a ranch and cattle and uses his dogs for herding, not that it qualifies him at all, but his personality is geared toward the "less is more" side as far as aggressive treatment goes. Now I don't know if that is the correct approach, and each person has their own philosophy. 

I'm not trying to defend the vet, but I think with the information I gave him at that particular snapshot in time, he gave me sound advice. I probably should have taken more time to explain what the vet said, but I was in a heightened state, so I omitted some important details. Hindsight is always 20/20. I apologize for that.

I have always been my own advocate when it comes to doctors. I tell them what meds I need, what tests to run and ask their opinions. Most of the time I get my diagnosis correct, and occasionally they come to a different conclusion(which I am thankful for!). 

I do tons of research when I can, but yesterday came on so fast!
I think when I posted, I just needed reassurance that he indeed needed to go to the vet. 

I will still continue to look for a better vet, and I appreciate all of the info. I have such lofty expectations for all doctors, and I have yet to find one that meets them, that includes doctors for myself and my animals. It's an endless battle. 

Stay tuned for more updates!


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## JudynRich

I betting on the pond water too...adult dogs can tolerate the bacteria a younger pup can't.


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## bigdoggypaws

If you're having trouble getting your dog to poop, there are a few things you can try. First, make sure that they are on a regular feeding schedule and have access to plenty of fresh water. If they're still not pooping, you can try adding a spoonful of canned pumpkin to their food - this is a natural stool softener. You can also try giving them a doggy probiotic, which will help keep their digestive system healthy. Finally, if all else fails, you can always take them to the vet to see if there's an underlying medical condition that's causing the problem.


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## Magwart

This thread is 12 years old. It's unlikely the OP is still around, much less still has a dog with diarrhea.


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