Took our three month old puppy to the vet yesterday because she’s been having diarrhea and there was just a bit of blood in some yesterday.
They took a stool sample and prescribed her metronidazole and a bland food diet with probiotics.
Got the call today that the stool was positive for giardia. I’m so sad.
They want her to go on fenbendazole as well. Both are treatments but why the extra medication? I’ll do whatever I can for my pup but I’m just curious if anybody else had this happen.
I also appreciate any tips on how to combat the giardia and further prevention until we can get her the vaccine. My main concerns are that she eats absolutely everything including grass and sticks and we live in an apartment so I bring her down to a patch of grass that other dogs use. Apartment people without access to grass, how do you potty train?
Anyway I’m a rambling mess and I just feel so bad for my girl. Thanks in advance
@anthonyk Okay, thank you for that. They prescribed metronidazole and the vet said that it was good because it helps giardia too in case she does have it before the stool sample results came back so I was just confused as to why they wanted to give her another one. I’m skeptical of everything and wasn’t sure if they were just trying to make some more money. But like I said, I’ll do whatever it takes.
Definitely gonna be looking into grass/turf options to put out on the deck until she can get the giardia vaccine. I just feel like such a jerk being two weeks into puppy parenthood and she already has a parasite
@jora Don't beat yourself up.. It's shockingly common, it's everywhere. It sucks but it's treatable. IMHO the upside (socializing my pup to the outside world at a young age) outweighed the downside (risk of giardia) that I took the chance.
I'm still super jealous of people with yards though
@jora I had the same for our pup. One was more of an antidiarrheal while the other was targeted more at resolving the giardia. (at least that was my understanding from what I was told. I didn't research into it)
@jora Hi! Our 3 month old French Bulldog also tested positive for Giardia, he had diarrhea when we got him from the breeder. He started his medications 5 days ago and now stopped having bloody and watery stool. Just wanted to ask if you have his stool tested again before you let him interact with other dogs again?
@duncangill Hi. Sorry to hear about the pup! Our vet had us go back 4 weeks after she tested positive and started the medicine to re-check and she was clear. We did wait until she was cleared to interact with other dogs. Good luck!
@jora Thank you! We just don’t know what to do currently as we are traveling next week and we can’t bring him. So the option is to leave him in our friend’s care but they have a cat. So we may need to reconsider our plans if he could be a danger to the kitten
@jora My pup had giardia at 3 months. But my vet said hers was inactive Giardia so not as serious. He just prescribed Panacur for 6 days. The medication won't hurt your pup (otherwise the vet wouldn't prescribe it). So if you can afford it I'd just do what the doctor says.
As another commenter mentioned, it's important to wipe their bums during treatment as they will be pooing the giardia out and could reinfect themselves ( from my limited understanding).
