Help...Chronic Stomach Problems
 

Hi everyone,

I am new to this board and hoping you can all give me a little advice. My yorkie has chronic stomach problems, and no vet seems to be able to figure out what is going on. A little background.....he gets the terrible gurgling sounds in his stomach and walks around hunched up and clearly in pain. He won't eat or drink and doesn't want to be touched. Sometimes this will last for two days.

He has always been fed small amounts of people food along with a dry kibble diet. When this has happened in the past and I have taken him to the vet, they have always been quick to blame the people food and tell me it's "probably" pancreatitis. He has had bloodwork done multiple times, with no evidence of that. I have now taken him off people food completely for the last four weeks, and he became sick again last night and was still sick this morning.

I have found a new vet that I really like and he is trying very hard to figure this out, but I thought I would post here and see if there is anyone else that has experienced this problem on a regular basis. Last night, the vet told me to try giving him 1/4 of a 10mg Pepcid once or twice a day and see how that works.

I'm very frustrated and worried. Any advice?????

Hello and welcome to TY.

I don't know what could be wrong with your baby, but I'll give you a bump in hope that you'll get some answers.

I haven't experienced that problem per se, but when my yorkie was a pup, he would get those gurgling sounds and you could tell his belly was bothering him, and he had really bad gas in his belly. So we had to give him infant gas drops, and it really helped him out with the gas...You might ask your vet if this is a possibility.
As long as the people food is not salted and is plain and is safe for dogs to eat, then I don't see a problem with feeding people food...In fact, in my opinion, people food is better as you know what you're giving your dog. Half of the time, you have no clue what''s really going in your doggie's belly unless you feed a very high quality dog food. You just have to make sure that you're not giving him anything that is toxic to dogs....
Do a search on google or even on here, and you should come up with some good info on that.
You might try giving him Natural Balance Duck & Potato dog food...It's for allergies, and I believe sensitive tummies...
I can't stress how much the infant gas drops helped my baby out...
I'll be praying for your baby, and hopefully someone has good advice for you.

Thanks for the suggestion of infant drops. Do you know the name/brand of what I should get? I forgot to mention that the vet also thought he might have an allergy to beef. I used to feed him a little ground sirloin with his dry food and he sometimes would have one of these episodes the day after he ate the beef. I am now only feeding chicken products.

I agree that people food is better than dog food, but because he is such a picky eater, I need to leave some dry food down for him all the time and occasionally feed rice, chicken, cottage cheese, etc.

My dog has had lots of stomach issues and my vet put him on Hills Prescription Diet I/D which you can only get from a vet. Its supposed to be a very bland diet for dogs with stomach problems. Its mainly chicken and duck and rice and corn. Hope your baby feels better!

The whole reason why I stumbbled upon Yoekietalk was b/c TJ was have those horrible episodes.

He would wake up in the morning and I just knew he wasn't feel right, then those LOUD girguling noises. TJ wouldn't eat (that's ok, I never forced him when he felt sick). Sometimes the noises would last ALL day, and other times it was shorter. It was the same routine though...

Noises - No Food - A tiny little 'log' of regular poop - Then a BIG glob of orange/yellow mucus - The TJ all better and starving hahaaha

This went on for a long time. We were at the Vet at least every 3 days. I kept a journal of what he ate and how he acted, etc...

The Vet suggested a strict diet to see if it was a food alleregy. At first I bought the Vet Food - IVD Duck & Potatoe flavor, but IMO that food is pure crap! So after one bag, I switched to Natural Balance Duck and Potato, and they also have a Duck and Potato Treat (cookie like treat). TJ was also give Metrodone also know as Flagy (I don't know the exact sp). This did not help at all. The food sorta helped. But then TJ started to also vomit and have all the other symtoms I mentioned above. We finally did blood work and everything was normal, except his Folate levels, they were extremely high. The Vet said, that they can't be exactly sure (they'd have to do a biopsy - no way!) - But they could venture to say he has some form of IBD and that the levels being so high they could venture to guess that TJ has an overgrowth of bacteria somewhere in his intestines.

We kept on the strict diet, but my Vet also suggested we try Tylan Powder. Just a 'tiny pinch' everyday in his food (I had to buy a can of Duck/Potato Wet) to be able to disguse the Tylan. Tylan you can get from your Vet and it is VERY safe, no long term side effects. My Vet had his own dog on Tylan Powder for her entire life!

Anyway, he got better! No more episodes and he can eat anything he wants! Which is Nature's Variety Raw Frozen medalions, steamed green beans, 1/4 of a sardine a day, a few liver treats, and about 10 pieces of Canidae Dry food (the weight management option).

Anyway, this was all about 1.5 years ago, I am sure I had so much more details about stuff in 'older posts'

Try doing a search here on YT for things like:
IBD
Tylan
Girguling

There are tons of threads ;)

Infant drops for gas and colic are fine, but, even better, try a Gripe Water by Baby's Bliss. It contains the same ingredients as infant drops but is all natural and not chemical based.

I had a phenomenal success with it. It is also something that is given to newborn human babies in cases when they have gas and/or colic.

Now, the above recommendation will help you to eliminate pain and suffering of your puppy but it will not eliminate the cause of the problem.

If the pancreatitis is not ruled out completely by the blood work (primarily, by lipase concentration in his blood), he needs to have Pancreatic Lipase Immunoreactivity (PLI) test performed. It's a much more conclusive test for pancreatitis than a simple blood work. Ask your vet.

Was he vomiting and/or loosing weight or is it just gas that he had. If it's just gas, then it's food. Also make sure that it is not expired. Do you feed him dry food or wet? What kind of treats do you give him?
If it's not pancreatitis, it might be food sensitivities. It's common in toy breeds. In order to figure out what causes his sensitivity, you need to go on what's called elimination diet.

Your doctor will give you more info on that. That's where the duck and potatoes formula another person on this thread has recommended comes in handy. Commonly, duck and potatoes are given not because they are less explosive for sensitive stomaches, but rather because they help to single out the protein or carbohydrate source from the formula you've been feeding thus far that caused your dog to be sensitive. The reason for that is that most of dog formulas don't have duck as a primary protein source as well as they don't have potatoes as a starch or carb source. Thus, you can safely assume that it is something other than those two ingredients that were causing your dog's problems. Again, duck and potatoes will only work if they were NOT part of your dog's formula before. If it's not the case, look at other proteins like venison. Anyway, you will need to serve your dog with duck and potatoes and nothing else and see how he feels. If he is OK, continue the elimination diet by adding one ingredient a day out of the list of the food your dog had eaten before. The food that causes your dog's problem is the one to be eliminated.

If it's not the sensitivities, test your dog for any cancer tumors, just in case.

In the blood work that was already performed, see if there is an increase in the white blood count. If there is, it might be a sign of an infection.

Also, has he been vomiting and/or loosing weight or is it just gas? If it's gas, then it is likely food related. Make sure that it is not expired. What kind of food do you give him? Is it wet or dry? What are his treats?

Wow! Thanks for all the great information. Everyone here is so knowledgeable and helpful, it's comforting.

I feed him dry food - I'm embarassed to say it's Purina Beneful - but it's the only thing he will eat consistently. I have tried almost all the premuim foods with no success. Merrick, Flint River Ranch, Canide, Royal Canin, Natural Balance, I could go on and on. He eats so little of the "good" food (and sometimes drops in weight (his normal weight is 4.5 pounds)) that the vets have told me to just give him the Purina because he eats that with gusto. That is partially why I try to supplement with people food (meat and veggies), to give him better nutrition. I have tried Merrick venison before and he won't touch it. he won't eat canned food either, he doesn't seem to like the "wetness" of it.

We tried the elimination diet four weeks ago after our last vet visit. Rice and cottage cheese for three days, then cutting out everything but the dry kibble and his only treats are chicken jerky strips. Then he got sick again last week and yesterday. Last week he vomited one time in the morning - the yellowish foamy stuff. Other than that, it just seems to be the horrible, painful gas. Usually after one of these episodes, he has loose stool for about one day then it's back to normal.

What brand of Chicken Jerky Treats???

I would not recommend give any medications to this puppy. I'l amazed at how quickly people will give medications.
Take that baby off of all food for one day. Give only water and some Nutri-Cal. After a day of cleansing, cook some "white" rice (about a cup cooked) and add a boiled egg to the rice. I use a potato masher to make sure it's mashed up really well. Feed this mixture several times a day as long as the puppy is not having any pain. If this works, then feed this for three days. On the fourth day you can add some tofu to the mix and feed for another three days. If that works, then try free range cooked ground beef to the mix for three more days as long as there is no pain. If all this works, then just feed these four things for at least a month. If you ever want to try a veggie, then make sure it's steamed. Like steamed broccoli. That's a very good veggie for them. Only try new foods for three days at a time before going on to anything else. No spices or gravys. If the first five items are well tolerated, you wouldn't need any other food. Just give a nice femur bone to chew on. Boil it first and clean out the marrow and any outside meat. The femur (also called marrow bone) bone does not splinter even after boiling it.

I'm at work and I don't know offhand. I get them at Costco. The only ingredient is chicken.

Read This:
http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/sho...ghlight=waggin

I too feed them, but NEVER again!
I returned 5 New Bags and 1 Opened Bag to Costco about 2 weeks ago!

Welcome to Yt...sorry I can't be of any help!

It was either dog.com or petedge that sent me a bulletin that said one brand (Icant remember) of chicken jerkey treats were being pulled off of the shelf because there was a potential to have salmanella poisioning on them.

Everyone has given wonderful advice! You need to get to the bottom of your baby's problem...