German Shepherd with chronic diahrea

by michelle
(ohio)

I directly rescued a white German Shepherd from a lady and I'm now fostering him in hopes one day he will get better and find his forever home. He was a house dog until the woman met a man and got pregnant and the man made the dog live outside.

My boss approached me that this dog was going to die unless I rescued him because he was starving to death. So out I go to get the dog and sure enough you can see every rib and his bones stick out. He is pretty close to full blooded (if not 100%) German Shepherd and weighs 40 pounds.

He has been abused but doesn't seem to be a horrible case. Who let's some man come into their life and kick there beloved pet to the backyard is beyond me. He has quite the vet history because he has diarrhea and everything just goes through him and he has weight loss. His fur was also falling out.

When I picked him up he was on a chain in the backyard with an igloo. I didn't see any kind of food or water dishes. He is eight years old now and acts like he is a pup. He is full of energy and loves to play with toys.

His fur is better now and I took him to my vet. My vet looked over all his medical records and thought maybe it was a pancreatic problem where the pancreas wasn't producing enough enzymes so he put the dog on viokase-v. He has been on that for 4 weeks now and we were giving him pumpkin.

The vet said no pumpkin, just dog food. He had some more solid stool once in awhile, but then took a turn for the worse the other morning. He wouldn't eat his breakfast and I could tell he wasn't feeling well and the diarrhea was back in full force. He had an accident in his crate and then again in the house. He felt horrible about it :( I assured him it was ok.

I called the vet and the next step he thought was to go in the direction of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and prescribed my most favorite drug (sarcasm here) prednisone. He also suggested diabetes but wanted to try the IBS route first.

The dog is to take both drugs until the viokase-v runs out. I found out last night that I was dosing the viokase wrong (ugh long story and I feel horrible). He was supposed to get two tablets twice a day and instead my husband and I were dosing one tablet twice a day. So now he is on the correct dosage for both meds.

Right now he has a lot of stool that doesn't smell which means the food isn't getting digested. It is very runny and after he goes once he will try to go again and again and nothing more comes out, but maybe some dribbles of water. This seems worse than when we got him. When we first brought him home he just had dieherra and he wouldn't try to go multiple times. His stomach is also making some weird noises.

We were thinking a probiotic might be a benefit to him. Not sure what kind to go with. The vet said to keep him on plain dog food twice a day and follow the recommended dosing instructions on the bag.

The poor dog is hungry all the time and of course super skinny. The vet also recommended to keep him on a food with around 21% protein. I got no food from the lady I rescued him from. He was on Wellness she said and they just ran out that day and her husband threw the bag away. Yet there was a bag of Pedigree in her dining room. Hmmm....likely story.

So I put him on Natural Balance venison and potato which has 20% protein. I take him every Wednesday night to get weighed at PetSmart. We'll see if he has gained weight tonight. This is week four. The first week was at the vet and he was 45 pounds. Then the past two weeks at PetSmart he was around 41 pounds.

So, any suggestions or experience with this? I'll take anything right now! I feel so lost and helpless.