Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis...what is this??
 

Ralphie did not eat this morning and I knew he was not right. He has been on the Hills U/D diet food for the past 5 months since his bladder stone surgery and he seemed to be doing fine, even though the food looks gross.

Tonight I attempted to feed him and again he refused. My son was playing games with his dry food in an attempt to get him to eat and Ralphie ate about 4 pieces of dry kibble and then he acted weird. Within a few minutes he passed a ton of blood and scared us to death.

I took him to the emergency vet who said he has hemorrhagic gastroenteritis and it could be now from the Hills U/D food....not enough fiber.

Great. So they fixed the stones and now killed of his stomach.

What does anyone know about this? He's on 3 different meds, Pedialyte, Pepcid AC and his food was switched to the Hills W/D diet.

How serious is this? Ralphie did swallow a huge Flaxseed Oil vitamin the other day and I'm wondering if this did something to him. I did call the vet and they said the pill was fine. NOw I'm not so sure.

I'm very upset to say the least.

Thanks for any advice.

There is a ton of info on the net about this disease and your breeder should be able to talk to you about it as well. I am sorry your baby has gone thru all of this but I think it is very treatable if caught in time.

here is one link of many
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/in...m/bc/23311.htm

Thank you so much for the link. It was very informative. Now, I'm really questioning the U/D food. I hated it from the time he was put on it and I'm really hoping the vet takes him off it permanently and allows him to go back to his old organic food supplementing him with I think potassium citrate medication. There's no guarantee with any diet that the stones won't return at some point. First this scary condition has to clear up and I sure hope there's no recurrence!

Sorry to hear about Ralphie's reaction to the food. My yorkie was also put on the u/d shortly after his bladder stones surgery, and he had very serious side effects from this food that he had never had on any other food. I took him off of it as soon as we determined that it was the food. He was actually seizing and everything. The 5th ingredient in this food is actually pork liver which is extremely bad for a dog with these types of stones because it is very high in purines which are bad for them. I hope the W/D works for you. We actually had to switch him to a homemade diet because none of the labels of the regular food or prescription foods sounded good to me as far as the stones are concerned. All of the ingredients we use are safe for dogs with his types of stones. We also give Miko 1/2 celery stalk juiced every morning, and it has helped sooooo much. I can't even begin to tell you :)

Ally, my 11+ year old Yorkie had this last November. She was throwing up blood and had blood in her stool. It came out of nowhere. I took her right to my vet and she started an IV with antibiotics. Fortunately, I was able to bring her home with her IV and bring her back in the morning. I had to do this for 3 days. When she came off the IV she ate boiled chicken and rice in very small amounts for 2 weeks.
She has not had a recurrence since.

Good luck!

I just looked in previous posts and saw that your baby has calcium oxalate stones...Do not give celery...A juiced zucchini should help because it is low oxalate, and it is a natural diuretic.

I don't know how old Ralphie is, however, would recommend that his protien levels are checked asap. The vets seem to push Science Diet, and not sure that is the best food. Sophie was on I/D and if I could repeat the last two years, she would have seen an internist ie specialist.

Good luck.

Thank you everyone. Ralphie is 5-1/2 yrs old. That SD stuff really upset me esp. since I had always given him excellent food prior...i.e. Life's Abundance which was the last food before he got the oxalate stones.

He was okay during the night and right now he is on 3 meds: carafate (2 days), baytril (7 days) , metronidazole (10 days) and Pepcid AC, plus pedialyte if necessary. I looked up the ingredients in the W/D canned food and I'm so disgusted to say the least. The dry food is even worse, which contains BHA BHT and ethoxyquin....just the reasons I always fed natural and organic food in prior years! I guess the high protein didn't do justice to Ralphie and he developed the stones.

I noticed when I walked him this morning, he still has blood on his stool but he is nowheres as bad as last night. I am keeping a very close watch on him now.

Do you think, aside from the U/D diet possibly being a cause, that the huge Flaxseed vitamin of mine that he happily swiped off the floor, might have caused this? :( That was 3 days ago and I did call the vet who did not seem too concerned about it.

I am going to ask about feeding homemade food, ie.. chicken and rice for awhile, even if I have to supplement him with the potassium citrate. And thank you for the zucchini juice suggestion.

When Gizmo had HGE He was on i/d for a couple of months. Then I switched to the Adult Chicken soup with no problem. The condition is serious and quite painful. SO glad your baby is doing better. I'm with you, never want to go thru this again.

Ralphie must be silently in pain because he really didn't want to go out and walk today and he so looks forward to doing so all the time! He's very mushy and resting which is fine, as long as he's not bleeding like he did last night. I'm seeing the vet again on Tuesday. I'm so upset because I'd love to get him off all prescription diet food but now he's doubled barrelled....have to watch for the oxalate stones not to reform, which they have a 90% chance of doing, and now his stomach is messed up. I would gladly use anything but this ugly dog food. :(

I'm glad Gizmo recovered and is well! :)

Learn something new everyday. I never heard of HGE in dogs.

PEDIALYTE: One question...can it be the flavored one?? He's balking at the unflavored but will happily lap up the Apple flavor. Thanks.

http://b-naturals.com/Dec2002.php Please check out this site...There's a lot of info regarding stones and particularly calcium oxalate stones. Yes, there are several homemade diets that would be safe for your baby. You just have to make sure that all the ingredients in the recipe are low oxalate...If they aren't, replace the particular ingredient with one that is. If you do a google search, you should be able to find a chart that includes low oxalate, medium oxalate, and high oxalate.

thanks for all the info. I am seriously looking into changing his diet if the vet agrees it's safe to do. He does not push Hills or Royal Canin prescription diets even though he sells it. I somehow like the other vet I saw last night as she said the Hills U/D stuff is loaded with garbage and fat. I asked why they recommend it then. No answer.

It's just like with us...sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands as you are your own best judge. If I followed thru with all the bad medical advice I've gotten in the past year for myself, I might not be here or I might have gone blind. No joke. I healed myself where no doctor could and I hope I can do the same for Ralphie.

I don't know about the flavored, never tried it. Maybe ask the vet. ;)

I did call. Said any one is fine. Ralphie refuses the plain one but will drink the apple. He does seem better this morning but the meds have been knocking him out.

http://www.branwen.com/rowan/oxalate.htm

Here's the chart that has the high, medium, low oxalate foods...Of course, not all of these foods are safe for dogs, but this chart shows which ones are too high in oxalate for your baby.