Thank you everyone for your helpful information, diagnosis hasn't been confirmed although the vet suspects it may be the case. If the Panacur does not work, the next step apparently is a stool sample off to the Labs. There has been no talk of repeating the treatment - should this be queried?

Did you guys have to be tested for it too? As it can pass to humans easily from what I know.

Goldenseal Root is meant to be good for it too.

Having read your post I realise how lucky my 2 were to get over Giardia so quickly. My cat at the time was only a kitten. The 1st vet did not test for Giardia so he had it a long time before being treated with panicur. Do you know why it can be caught through human sewage sludge as I was lead to believe it was caught through contaminated meat or contaminated dog poo.
Thanks Yvonne.

Yes, it must be repeated.

Agreed, all info I have read says to repeat to kill the larvae when they hatch x

How long it it after treatment that a normsl poo could be expected. ?

It hasn't been confirmed as Giardia, vet is only treating in case it is as there has been no response to other treatment x

Panacur should do the trick if it is giardia, but robust treatment is the name of the game. The recommended 3 or 5 days may not be sufficient. Depending on the age of the dog, a course of 7 days following the directions for the weight of the dog would be advised. Not all vets will advise this, but I have years of experience with this ghastly protozoa and I know what I'm talking about.

Sometimes our boys have needed a course of metronidazole - the vet will prescribe this, it is a very strong a.b. but is the human medicine for giardia.

Giardia is present in every single sewage farm in the country now, because of our large immigrant population and also because we travel to exotic 3rd world countries now where giardia is endemic. It only needs 1 person's faeces infected with giardia to contaminate the whole sewage farm. The sewage sludge, the solids, which consist not only of human faeces contaminated with giardia, but every other bacterium, pathogen, protozoan, parasite known to man plus industrial chemicals, carcinogenic materials, engine oil, battery acid, you name it, it gets flushed (illegally) down the lavatory in many factories etc. etc., is partially treated - note the word partially - and then spread on the fields as a nitrogen fertiliser. The partial treatment does NOT kill the giardia spores, so if you enjoy a bowl of cornflakes of a morning, you are doubtless eating corn that was fertilised with human poo poo - nice! When they spread this stuff on the fields, it goes everywhere of course, into our gardens, onto the footpaths, bridleways, everywhere. You will see lumps of it lying everywhere - to be eaten by our dogs, rabbits, birds. This is how our family contracted giardia, from our dogs, who pick it up on their paws from the footpaths and bridleways along which the tractor and trailer spreading the HSS has driven, dropping the stuff off the wheels, and then they bring it into the house on their paws, they lick their paws, they ingest spores of giardia, they become infected with giardia, they lick us - however careful you are not to let your dog lick your face, they will still get a crafty one in on your fingers, and unless you wash your hands IMMEDIATELY, invariably the giardia - and other nasties too - will get into your body through mucous membranes, if not directly into your mouth. It is terribly infectious, you can get giardia either of course from the live protozoa by drinking contaminated water or faecal matter, or by ingesting the cysts which will embed themselves into the gut wall and make you very poorly. So yes, it is contracted from faecal matter - either directly or indirectly.

Normal disinfectant will not kill the spores or the giardia themselves, you need to use quaternary disinfectant, which you can buy cheaply online.

If the treatment has worked, very quickly. The recovery is like a miracle - on average we find with our boys that the recovery is usually a day after we have started the panacur, both in terms of well-being and poo, but sometimes it takes longer. The average would be 2 days I guess.