My Dog Had Giardia - Long Term Effects
When your veterinarian calls you to break the news that your dog actually tested positive for a parasite, its a sinking feeling of panic and worry.
Our havanese, Norman, was starting to leave some foul black n’ bloody messes for us and just wasn’t acting himself. We shrugged it off and thought it’s nothing it’ll pass. He would get bad, then he’d be okay, then the cycle would repeat. We lived in Sedona, Arizona at the time and would take our dogs up to Flagstaff to hike in the mountains frequently. I would constantly hear people in our town say that Flagstaff is a notorious host for giardia. I thought, “That won’t happen to my boys.” So, learn from me, do a little research or call your vet to see if its commonly present in your area! A month later when the diarrhea episodes didn’t subside we took him to the vet.
Once we received that sinking phone call our vet put him on metronidazole, stool hardeners, and some sort of drug in a packet (I can’t remember the name) for a week. Our vet said he had a very bad case of it and it might be hard to kick it. Norm went on two rounds of the drugs and was good and testing negative three separate times for giardia. We thought we were in the clear but we were wrong.
There are long term effects of giardia. Because he had such a bad case, it really wreaked some major havoc on his digestive system.
For the past year Norman has had weird spells very similar to the symptoms he was having when he had giardia. He’d refuse food, be lethargic, pass a LOT of gas, urgent diarrhea, bloody mucus stools, tarry stools.. just so much discomfort and we couldn’t for the life of us figure out what the problem was. I changed his protein, I tried limited ingredient diets, expensive food, bland food, EVERYTHING. We had just moved out east temporarily so we had to find a new vet (which is hard, I’m a picky dog mom). I finally found a vet I liked and he put him on Proviable and a gastrointestinal WET FOOD diet. Which so far (cross your fingers) has been a GOD SEND. I think the wet food is key here, it makes more sense for a poor little damaged gut to prefer something mashed and moist. I knew that the probiotic would be a great thing for him, I did some research on that before he was prescribed one - it was just finding what particular strains of bacteria would make that difference for him.
We are crazy about our dogs, they do everything and go everywhere with us. I’d do anything in the world to make sure they are healthy, happy, and comfortable.
I’ll keep updating this post as time rolls on. If you have had any experience with giardia or gastrointestinal issues with one of your pups let me know! I would love to hear about the things you did to manage the issue!
<3 Lisa
