Well the dreaded thing happened...woke up Monday morning (day off from farming) to a thing all people who raise puppies hate to see--- diarrhea on my puppy papers. Although everyone seemed great and was ready to gobble up breakfast, someone here had a loose stool. For a calmer description from here on out I will call it "Scours" like we do on the farm. Now scours can be, for humans, just an inconvenience but for puppies it needs to be taken serious. Many diseases and issues cause scouring in puppies just like in other animals. I has suspected it Sunday but couldn't be for sure. I have raised pups for long enough that I recognize if someone is sick or off feed even a little and that was not the case. But here was a prime loose one on the papers right in front of me. I carefully scooped up a sample and inspected the pups and decided on at least 2 I wanted to take in for an exam.
At the vets they gave them an exam and then ran a "fecal" exam where they insert an instrument into the rectum and get a swab to look at under the microscope. They did the first one and found nothing although she could see there was some scours there. The next puppy was done the same way and still nothing...no worms, no parasites, nothing. They took my sample and nothing on that either but she could definitely say there was some scouring by just looking at the sample. So between the both of us we decided it would be good just to put them on medicine for two possibilities that are common to puppies of this age; Giardia and Coccidia.
The Giardia treatment is a liquid (Albendazole ) given by mouth for 5 days that will rid them of any of the protozoan that causes this illness. Dogs of all ages can be affected and its pretty common at this age when they put everything in their mouth. Coccidia treatment is also a liquid (Albon) given by mouth for 10 days and it will inhibit the Coccidia from reproducing in the intestines and they die out. Giardia can infect almost any animal and there are like 40 species of Giardia known. It is picked up from ingesting or even sniffing the contaminated ground. Coccidia infects many different animals but is not a concern for people since it is very "picky" and has certain hosts it stays with...dogs to dogs, chickens to chickens for example. Since many people come here to look at puppies it is just a possibility it can come in on peoples shoes and infect our dogs, although adult dogs rarely ever get sick from things like that, they can shed the agents when stressed. I have occasionally boarded dogs here for breeding and that's an issue for puppies too since both can survive in the dirt for years! So we started medication and even though they don't seem bothered, I AM! I am always thankful that we have never had a break of Parvovirus here at our place. All my adult dogs are vaccinated yearly and puppies at 6 weeks but you never know if a potential buyer comes to look at puppies and has just left a kennel with Parvo! That's the importance of vaccinations at a very timely manner, and why I insist that puppies stay until 8 weeks at the earliest so they can build some immunity to this deadly disease. This is a diarrhea that will KILL a puppy in a matter of 24 hours. Always it must be considered serious until they are mature enough that they have at least 4 shots under their belt.
These were taken today...they definitely are not slowing down at all!
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