When she throws up is it that full body horka, horka, horka, spew or is it open mouth and sploosh, out it comes?

For the diarrhea that 12 hour fasting Texas A/M GI panel is nice. She may just need some B shots, or a 30 day round of antibiotics, or nothing at all, but it's a good test. Of course a great tech looking at a fecal is also nice to have!

I'm a big fan of trying "not chicken".

I would try a few days of homecooked beef and something, be it overcooked rice or green beans, etc.

There are other things you can add to support the gut (unloader has a long thread somewhere on the site about this too). It's nice when the testing picks something up, then you know what you are fighting, so many of these dogs do end up needing a course of antibiotics, but I would try a few days of the homecooked diet as a first step.

It a fully body thing. First she'll start licking some air for about 5-10 seconds, then she gets this funny look on her face, then some deep breathing, then out comes the yellow stuff. Looks like eggs before you pour them in the pan to make scrambled eggs... yellow, frothy stuff.



Thanks for replying, Lisa. I know you helped a lot with the probiotics the last time... too bad the problems back and worse than ever lately.

I'll go to the store tomorrow to pick up some ground beef to make. Maybe mix it with some rice for a couple days.

Just curious and I should have asked my vet this, but why am I going away from chicken now? Is it because it's a possible allergy all of a sudden or her system just can't handle it anymore because she's been eating it since day 1 and it's never been a problem like it's been the last couple months?

And regarding the antibiotics, she's already been on them. She was on Flagyl for about 7-10 days. I forgot exactly how long, but it didn't help. She was prescribed them about 2 weeks ago after her most recent vet visit.

yes.

This happened with Max. I switched to chicken once, and everything was better, I was so relieved. Over time, terrible digestive problems. Couldn't be the chicken since it made everything better???? Yep, it was the chicken. I've seen it happen with other dogs too, so it's always worth trying "not chicken". Since the flagyl didn't help at all, that might point to a food issue (or the wrong abx).

Hoping for a quick resolution!

Risa has gut issues as well (though hers are diarrhea-related and not usually vomitting). She used to handle poultry fine but, almost 2 years ago, I had to eliminate it from her diet completely. Something about poultry seems to set a lot of dogs off so I think it's a fair first step. And relatively easy (it is surprising how much stuff has poultry in it, though!).

Squash or pumpkin also works well as a fibrous additive to food. Risa's homecooked "Gut Stew" is mainly squash/pumpkin and beef.

Good luck!!

Yeah, food intolerances can pop up at any time - that's what is so frustrating. Just remember that with all the things you try, one of them is bound to help her problem, but you're not really going to know which one if you make too many changes at once. Either try a new medicine, eliminate a single food item, or change from kibble to home-cooked, etc., but not all at once, IMO. You need to get to the root of this problem and it will be hard to single it out with a lot of changes all at once.

That's exactly Gracie. We did the expensive bloodwork, several times. She has low B12 and SIBO (you can find links explaining it here on the forum). We tried vet diet Low Residue for 2 years and that worked but all of a sudden it stopped working so we went to an internal medicine specialist after an emergency room trip thinking she had an obstruction but only a HUGE about of stool & gas trapped & they did an ultrasound. He diagnosed her with "presumptive" IBD - he did not sedate her and do a biopsy but based on breed, symptoms & what they saw on the ultrasound, he went with diagnosis of IBD. He started her on Purina HA (blech, but she loved it) and doxycyline for the inflamation in the intestinal tract. We stopped the HA after about 4 months and transitioned to Natural Balance Lamb & Brown Rice and that worked for about 6 -8 months then all of a sudden stopped working so we went to Natural Balance Duck & Potato. Again it worked for about 6-8 months then stopped working.

Why she develops a sudden intolerance to foods we aren't certain but if I look closely enough, I'm sure I'd see a common ingredient that is the cluprit. I switched her to Blue Basics Salmon & Potato but they had a recall so I changed over to Precise Holistic Wild at Heart River Blend Salmon. She's been on that for close to a year now (shhhh.....) We have even stopped the doxycyline (which had been weaned from 400 daily to 200 daily to 100 daily to 100 every other day to 100 every 3 days).

I am so sorry to hear you are going through this. It's such a hard diagnosis. And it's horrible to see that pre-vomit look on their face. Good luck with finding answers!!!! You have friends in the club!!

Yeah, she's back to eating. Inhaled her dinner last night and ate this morning. No throwing up, but still a nasty dark brown diarrhea.

I'm going to completely eliminate chicken and turkey from her diet and we'll see how that goes.

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

Good luck, do keep us posted!