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Old 08-11-2010, 12:24 PM   #1
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Default Giardia and Coccidiosis...

So this is my first post on YT. And unfortunately, it happens to be in the worst section of the thread...

To make a short story short...

We brought home Lola last Sunday (August 11th). She is a Biewer Yorkshire Terrier and was born on April 20th, 2010 making her almost 4 months old. She came home to us fine and weighed in at a very small 1.5 pounds. The breeder (who I will keep anonymous for now) said that she was most likely going to top out at 3.5 - 4 pounds max. She came home fine and was the brightest and most playful puppy ever. Then all of a sudden, starting this past Monday (August 9th) her stools got VERY runny pretty much to the point of diarrhea (she went to the bathroom about 6 times that day). Fearing something was wrong or that we were just over feeding her (she was eating Wellness Wet Puppy Food (1tbsp in the morning) and Orijen Puppy Kibble (about a little less than a half cup a day)). After the initial onset of the loose stools we decreased the amount and her poop went back to normal on Tuesday (August 10th). And then, at midnight today (August 11th) she began to have very loose stools and had even a trace of bright red blood at the end. Thinking that this was just another case of her maybe just not feeling 100% from overfeeding the day before I didn't think much of it.. So we hopped in bed to go to sleep and guess what, about 40 minutes later she hopped off the bed and went diarrhea again with the same consistency and again with a trace of blood at the end of the stool. Fast forward to 11:05AM this morning and she had made a total of 9 trips to the bathroom with each stool getting less and less brown with more and more mucus and eventually a 50/50 split of purely mucus and blood. We rushed her to the vet immediately and she was diagnosed with both giardia and both coccidiosis. The vet personally said in his 30 years of practicing that he has not once seen a giardia test come up positive THAT quickly.. So we swallowed the $800 estimate for the day care (she is on IVs, in a thermo regulated den, and a possibility of a night at the E.R. if she isn't back on track by 6pm today). Her temperature read at 97.2 degrees and the vet estimated that she was nearing 5% dehydration (along with severe cramps because of the fact that she was just straining and had emptied her entire colon throughout the night).

To sum it all up... I was wondering if I could get an opinion from maybe some of you breeders out there or anyone else who has had similar or same experiences to maybe help us through these times and help us understand what is going on in an even more basic level than what our vet described. I'm really curious and a bit furious as to why the breeder had sold us such a sick puppy if what the vet said is true (the vet said that the incubation period for both giardia and especially coccidiosis is a bit longer than the total of 11 days that Lola has been living with us in the house).

I feel as if the breeder should play a role in terms of the financial aspects of the treatment. We paid $2500 for Lola and now with this, the total will most likely easily run up to $3500 - $4000 for the puppy. Our family loves her to death and has already become so attached to this little ball of energy and sass..

To cliff note everything up..

-Lola has been with us for 11 days
-Lola is 1.9 pounds as of today (August 11th)
-Lola has been eating Wellness Puppy Food (Wet) and Orijen Dry Puppy Kibble
-Lola came down with giardia and coccidiosis symptoms roughly on the 8th day of being with us
-Lola is in critical condition as of now according to the vet

What I want to find out is this..

1) Is it right for me to call the breeder and let her know about all of this and maybe put the blame on her for this mess?
2) Is coccidiosis a fairly common theme amongst puppies?
3) We really shouldn't be worried about a dead puppy right especially since we got her in to the vet not less than 12 hours after the initial symptoms?

And I apologize in advance if a lot of the context in this body of message is just confusing or just has no trail because I literally just got back from the vet and a flood of emotions are just running through me right now...

Any help/suggestions/anything will be better than nothing. Thanks in advance everyone.
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Old 08-12-2010, 02:46 PM   #2
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This sounds exactly like my situation... I dont know if you have read my thread but I got a puppy last month and had this exact thing happen to me. she had both giardia and coccidia and was found positive 3 days after being home. she was so sick she had to be put on an iv for 2 days. I think you got your puppy the same breeder as i did, my girl was born on 4/24/1010 and i was looking at another very tiny biewer pup that was only 1 lb and was born 4/20/2010. ill pm you and ask. i would deffinatly contact the breeder. tell her what you have found and ask for compensation. there is a puppy lemon law in Ca that says if the puppy is sick when comming home that you are intitled to a refund of the vet cost. if you got her from the same "breeder" i did, then you will find that she will not help. but if its a reputable breeder then she will want to help you with vet cost. whatever you do, do not hide this from the breeder. giardia and coccidia are contagious, even to humans, so you want to make sure the breeder doesnt get an epidemic. anyways, hope your girl does good! she is so tiny, but just make sure she eats and drinks water. sounds like you will be on the road to recovery soon. my girl has been sick since we got her about 4 weeks ago. she is just now getting better, so its a long road, but it will all end ok. :]
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Old 08-12-2010, 03:30 PM   #3
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Thanks for the reply Lola (great name by the way hah!). Lola has been doing a lot better and she should be coming home with us tonight (crossing fingers). But on a slightly scary side note, the vet looked over Lola's blood work from when she was in bad shape (yesterday morning) and noted that her blood sugar level was very low (40s, when average should be between 60 - 140ish). I don't know if that was because she hadn't eaten in almost 16-20 hours or if its a sign of a possible liver shunt? The vet said that it could be a liver shunt and that we should run a bile acid test on her sometime in the next few weeks (he said that when a puppy is going through an intense battle with parasites or bacteria that the liver should be pumping at least a little bit of glucose into her system to keep her up?? I might be a bit confused about what he said but that was the gist of it..) If anyone else whose dealt with liver shunts could possibly explain in layman's terms what I should be looking out for that would be great (Lola has never showed signs of seizuring or hobbling or anything like that [that was what I figured out from a simple google search as symptoms for possible liver shunt/hypoglycemia] so i'm hoping that it was just because of her serious bout with diarrhea and what not).
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Old 08-12-2010, 04:14 PM   #4
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Thanks for the reply Lola (great name by the way hah!). Lola has been doing a lot better and she should be coming home with us tonight (crossing fingers). But on a slightly scary side note, the vet looked over Lola's blood work from when she was in bad shape (yesterday morning) and noted that her blood sugar level was very low (40s, when average should be between 60 - 140ish). I don't know if that was because she hadn't eaten in almost 16-20 hours or if its a sign of a possible liver shunt? The vet said that it could be a liver shunt and that we should run a bile acid test on her sometime in the next few weeks (he said that when a puppy is going through an intense battle with parasites or bacteria that the liver should be pumping at least a little bit of glucose into her system to keep her up?? I might be a bit confused about what he said but that was the gist of it..) If anyone else whose dealt with liver shunts could possibly explain in layman's terms what I should be looking out for that would be great (Lola has never showed signs of seizuring or hobbling or anything like that [that was what I figured out from a simple google search as symptoms for possible liver shunt/hypoglycemia] so i'm hoping that it was just because of her serious bout with diarrhea and what not).

I would definitely contact the breeder and tell her about this situation as soon as possible! Did you get a contract with your baby? 2500$ is SO much money to spend on a sick puppy! The breeder should be responsible to help with the vet expenses. You shouldn't have to deal with this, this should be a time of joy. I know exactly how you feel I had a 10 week old puppy pass away a couple years ago. I had him for 3 weeks and he had checked out fine at the vets and passed away shortly after. Some breeders just don't care about these little babies and the families who are hurt by their bad breeding!

I wouldn't worry about the liver shunt right now. It's a good idea to do the bile acid test in a couple weeks. With her size and age I'd really say that it was probably low blood sugar from not eating for so many hours! These little babies can go down hill so fast when they are tiny and don't eat.
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Old 08-12-2010, 04:14 PM   #5
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I do pray that Lola will make a speedy recovery. It sounds like she is in good hands. Sadly, it seems that we are hearing more and more instances of puppies that have coccidia and giardia. It is fairly common in the larger breeding kennels. You should definitely contact the breeder but most likely she has put in her contract that she will not cover parasites. The breeder should have had the puppy checked before she sold her. The problem with coccidia and giardia is that it lies dormant in the dogs intestines and it is sometimes hard to detect in a stool sample unless the dog is having an outbreak. I think a reputable breeder should be willing to help you with the vet costs. You will always have to watch Lola carefully because it is very difficult to get rid of the giardia from what I have heard. She will probably have to be on medication for quite awhile. Good luck with your baby.
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Old 08-12-2010, 05:03 PM   #6
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You are in California, so do a search for the Puppy Lemon Law. Coccidia is a parasite that is transmitted from dog to dog and can live in the intestines for a while. It tends to act up during periods of extreme stress (like moving a puppy from one home to another).

The incubation period of coccidia is 13 days. So if she was only in your home 8, then she picked it up from the breeder.

http://www.dogplay.com/Breeding/lemonlaw.html
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Old 08-12-2010, 06:04 PM   #7
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So we just brought Lola back home and she is acting her like old self again. She passed her first stool here (of course on our dining rug ...) and it was solid! Hopefully over the next few days of giardia treatment she will be at 100%.

On another note, I was wondering if anyone could give me input on how I should approach the breeder or what I should say to her in order to get her to comply? We're thinking of going to small claims if she does not want to meet us in terms of covering all of the vet bills.

If anyone can chime in with prior experiences in terms of talking to breeders please help! This is our first puppy let alone first dog and we just had to go through this crazy roller coaster ride of an ordeal..
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Old 08-12-2010, 06:38 PM   #8
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Just send them an email explaing everything that happened. just let them know that it was stressful for you and you really hope that they could help by paying the vet bills. explain that you can show them what you have had to pay for. if they don't comply then show them the lemon law for CA. if they still dont comply then maybe threaten with small claims court. hopefully after the first email they will want to help you. if they don't then i would be more insistant because it is not right for a breeder to sell a sick pup and not take responsibility.

hope this helps. i'm so glad to hear that lola is doing better!
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Old 08-12-2010, 06:40 PM   #9
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So I just called the breeder simply to tell her what went down. She got angry and started yelling IMMEDIATELY upon me even slightly attempting to put the blame on her. She continuously stated that the giardia and coccidia were contracted AT the vet during our initial check up which was 72 hours after we picked her up from the breeder.

She says that she treats ALL of her puppies with giardia medicine for 10 days prior to selling them.. And she continues to say that the incubation period for giardia and coccidia can be 48 hours.. (she was just yelling and talking really fast and would cut me off if I tried to say something as well.. which made me think that she was simply trying to shove random facts down my throat to make me second guess my vet and what not) which is funny because how would she know when a puppy was going to be sold?

She also said that she does stool tests for giardia and coccidia on ALL of her pups.. Which again raises another question.. Can a breeder be doctoring puppies? Such as having all of these medicines on hand (she specifically stated to me that she has every medicine on hand and available so that if we ever have another emergency to call her before going to the vet) because to me that seems like illegal practicing.

Another interesting thing is that she says that she is a "rescue" house as well.. as in she takes in dogs from other people who just can't handle raising the dog. Which struck an alarm in my mind in terms of her bringing in random dogs that might be carrying coccidia and giardia into the home while all of her pups are there.

In all honesty, she seems like a very legitimate breeder. I'm just a bit taken back that she is 100% sure that the dog got all of these problems AFTER she came to our home (even though she's been here for a mere 11 days..). She also continued to reiterate the fact that "when the puppy left my care she was the most beautiful and healthy puppy ever". Thats great and all but of course she had to be a beautiful and healthy puppy or else you wouldn't have been able to sell it to us in the first place..

I'm going through an emotional ride from stress and anxiety to now anger and frustration that there is such a lack of integrity within the dog world. I for sure will never recommend this breeder to anyone in the Bay Area and if you would like to know who the breeder is, just shoot me a PM.
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Old 08-12-2010, 06:54 PM   #10
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Is she the breeder of your Lola or was this dog one of her rescues??

I am thinking if she is taking in other dogs as rescues maybe Lola was exposed that way.????

Just a thought!
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Old 08-12-2010, 07:01 PM   #11
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You both may be interested in this thread....specifically posts by the author named Romans....starting at 56.

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/bre...e-puppy-4.html
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Old 08-12-2010, 07:34 PM   #12
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here are some blurry cell phone pictures of lola before she got sick.
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Old 08-12-2010, 07:40 PM   #13
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She is Adorable!! Congrats on your new baby
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Old 08-12-2010, 08:59 PM   #14
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You both may be interested in this thread....specifically posts by the author named Romans....starting at 56.

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/bre...e-puppy-4.html
I have already disscused the possibility of us getting our pups from the same breeder "romans", but its a different person. sounds really familiar doesnt it though. this is my review on the breeder "romans" :

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/bre...ie-kisses.html
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Old 08-12-2010, 09:50 PM   #15
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here are some blurry cell phone pictures of lola before she got sick.
She is beyond adorable, and I am so sorry she is sick and you are going thru all this instead of just enjoying your new little one. I pray that she makes a full fast recovery.

One of my pups came home with coccidia and I had to treat the other pup who is 3 months older too, just in case. Giardia is tougher, and dealing with both is a lot. Did the vet give you instructions for cleaning the potty soiled places in your home so you won't re-infect? With such a tiny pup you do have extra worries already, so be sure you know how to watch for hypoglycemia and give her Nutrical if she shows signs or if she isn't eating.
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