Irritable Bowel Syndrome?? What to do

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willd35

New member
TLDR: dog is frequently vomiting yellow mucus with blood specs accompanied by diarrhea, lethargy, and reduced eating/drinking. Vet does not have an answer after X-rays, blood work, specific tests, and diet changes have not worked in the past.

My wife and I are looking for help with our 8 year old rescue who we think is either a Boxer/Whippet mix or some type or pitbull mix.

She has had vomiting issues intermittently and we had her tested for allergies, which came back and said she was allergic to the big dog food ingredients chicken, beef, etc. So we have always used a limited ingredient lamb/duck/salmon etc food.

Over the last year, her vomiting events have increased in frequency. Now they begin with thick yellow mucus then turns to pink with blood chunks or clot looking specs. The worst event included dark black diarrhea with jelly like blood. I looked it up and that sounded like HGE, but the vet ran tests and said it was not. Vet recommended Purina sensitive skin and stomach food, which worked only for 3 weeks and the problem returned. Her vomiting and diarrhea events are now almost monthly.

At this last event, we took her to an ER vet who did X-rays and other work-ups. She was negative for cancer, Addisons disease, blockage. Basically after $1k we still don't have an answer.

She does not get table food, and does not eat foreign materials (toys, raw hides, sticks).
 
@willd35 Your dog might do better on home cooked meals only. My sensitive stomach dog will only tolerate home cooked meals and is doing fine on it. Might be worth looking into.
 
@willd35 Any chance she’s picking up cannabis roaches/butts? These are everywhere now since legalization and when dogs consume cannabis this is often their physiological response
 
@willd35 I saw a video a while ago about a dog who turned out to be allergic to all animal proteins. They switched her over to a prescription vegetarian diet and she was thriving.

Has the vet done a full abdominal ultrasound? Some things don't show up on Xrays but do on ultrasound.
 
@hb3 Ultrasound was actually the next suggested idea to try. The vegan diet would be interesting as well since a hydrolyzed diet is super expensive
 
@willd35 Please consult a veterinary nutritionist and look into fiet-associated dilated cardiomyopathy before home feeding (get the diets looked into first and agreed with. Home cooking nutrition balanced meals is very expensive) or switching to other diets/methods (that aren’t backed by a nutritionist). The hydrolyzed diets are expensive but they do have scientific backing and feeding trials on them. Also be warned that testing for allergies will never give a 100% answer.

Going to a specialist will be more expensive up front but less money in the long run. It’s 100x better than any random vet or emergency hospital.

My dog has vomiting issues which we’ve gotten no answers on yet (thankfully not ME or a hernia) but I’m thinking it’s either acid reflex or not enough liquid in his tummy. Soaking all dry foods first had helped a lot from not allowing food to expand in his tummy. It’s a long battle with a sick dog (and it won’t ever be cheap) but they deserve the best. Maybe look into pet insurance?
 
@finalword just a heads up on on diet associated dilated cardiomyopathy. THe FDA has stopped collecting data and researching it because unless significant new research comes to light, they believe there is no evidence to support the previous claims made. THere was also an intensive 3 day conference at Kansas State University with research scientists, vets, and food industry representatives and no credible evidence can be presented to link food and cardiomyopathy (The link has copies of almost all the presentations with data) . It's accepted that the first report was flawed with inaccurate reporting of results. When doing research, a person has to be very careful to not get caught in an echo chamber of people who present as qualified but who are actually not. cougheverydoginfluencerevercough

I had extensive discussions with the cardiologist at my vet's clinic and she looked at the data and agreed that there's nothing to support the panic some vets and most influencers are continuing to express. If you want to be very cautious, pulse legumes could be avoided but there's no reason that if your dog does well on food that contains legumes, you need to change their food. My dog, an American Bulldog mix, did extremely well on a limited Fish and Potato food because like almost all bullies, he was allergic to chicken.
 
@hb3 Yeah I don’t have social media so I’m not quite sure what influencers are pushing but I stopped looking after every other person was pushing human diets and anti corn stuff so I just follow what works for my rescue. I’m just still going to error on caution with him sadly since I don’t know his issues yet.

Yup chicken allergies are a huge pain. That’s also another thought in my brain. It’s not easy dealing with this stuff at all lol. But as long as the dogo is happy - nothing else matters lol
 
@finalword exactly! Walrus needs to lose weight. Well good luck finding a diet food that's not chicken. Thank goodness i found the fish-based food. He loves it, he's losing weight, the vet's happy. All good.
 
@finalword separate note to say that pet insurance would not be an option since this is an ongoing, already examined issue and no insurance company will cover anything to do with this issue because insurance will not cover "preexisting conditions". Heck, some insurance companies won't even cover stuff that happens to your dog if they consider it happened because he was "playing" so goodbye to coverage on torn ACLs. a person is better off taking the monthly pet insurance fees and putting that in a high yield savings account instead so it can be accessed when needed for anything it's needed for
 
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