My pup had this about a month ago, it's a bit of a strange one, my vet could not advise one way or the other. As we play with three other dogs and one of them had it we couldn't pin down who had picked it up first or where from. It is extremely prevalent and because when adult dogs get it we may never even notice it, it is very difficult to get rid of. You may treat your dog and then they may get it two weeks down the line from another dog. It is also passed via zoonosis especially cats, dogs and humans. It is treated with antibiotics three times daily for three weeks then a fecal sample needs to be tested and if it's still positive you start all over again. The best way to combat is with good hygeine. It's very much like salmonella as in the young and infirm will develop symtoms and the adult healthy may not even know they have had it. The most difficult thing I found was her loss of appetite which in a 4mnth old puppy was not good, but she is fine now and back to stuffing her little face

Im glad that your puppy got rid of it Ramoth, I have asked the vet to test that it has gone in a month, im sure that wont be a problem, Jess seems to be picking herself up already and like I have said her appetite is getting back to normal, if not a little greedier now after being hungry for 24 hours!

I had this myself about 5 years ago, and I can tell you, for 5 whole days I thought I was dying and I was out for the count!!! It came on quite suddenly at 1 o'clock in the morning with vomiting and wrenching gut pains. Hubby called out the doc who could hear my screaming out in the background (honestly, I have never had such cramps in my abdomen!). Anyway, he came out and thought I had appendicitis, as I had a temperature of 105deg. and I asked him if this was bad, so he replied that you're dead at 107!!!! I actually felt a bit better by then, so he decided not to send me to hospital. Anyway, I was really, really bad, all I could do was drag myself to the loo every hour or so, and in the end all I was passing was neat blood - not a pleasant experience. I kept ringing my surgery to tell them I was getting worse instead of better, but they just fobbed me off. They did ask for a poo sample which hubby took down to them, and by 5 days I had surfaced into the World again, having been totally out of it so to speak, it was horrendous! The doc's rang me and asked me if I was ok, and I told them I was NOW, but hadn't been, and the doc said I should have been in hospital on a drip or dead He then sent some anti-biotics round and I recovered. This is a reportable disease to the Health people as if you've got it/had it, you're not allowed to work with food (which I did at the time!) for 3 whole months, and apparently it can stay in your system for years. The Health Inspector told me it is only contractable from raw red meat or faeces, and I told him I had just returned from Spain the night before I came down with it and had eaten a very "iffy" steak which was raw in the middle - so there you go he said! What a pity it hadn't been a pork pie from Sainsbury's he told me, coz we could have sued the pants off them!!!!

That's as much as I know about it, but it's the worst thing I've ever had in my life I can tell ya!! No wonder Jess feels so bad if she's got it!

The Health Inspector told me it is only contractable from raw red meat or faeces


It's raw chicken that's the main carrier and that's human grade not the pet stuff, something like 1 in 10 chickens have it that's why hygeine is so important. Not saying you can't get it from red meat but chucks are the main culprit and yes it can be carried forever that's why it's sooo bloody difficult to get rid of

My friend contracted it from her dog but I was lucky I didn't get it from Imana

This is from 'wet' chickens which are bought from all supermarkets. The bacteria grows quicker in a wet enviroment.
If you buy a chicken from a butchers 9 times out of 10 its dry and it doesn't decompose as quick.

Must add that proper cooking does kill the bacteria.

When I had it last year, I was really ill
I lost about a stone in weight, and pretty much lived on the toilet!

I went to the docs, who did a 'poo' test, and it came back I had it.
Environmental Health sent me a questionnaire to fill in, as they like to keep their eye on food poisoning, and where you may have got it from.

It said on the form that chicken, and dog poo are the main ways to get it.
Well, I eat lots of chicken, and work at a kennels! lol

My docs also put me on antibiotics, but when I got the form from EH, it said in bold DO NOT take anti biotics, as it can make it worse, so I stopped straight away!
But I have since read online, that it can be treated with AB's!

Wonder if it's different in people 'cos with dogs their first line of attack is Anti-biotic Hmmm

Don't know.
But I was really scared when I got the letter that said don't take them...cos I had been taking them for 3 days!

I looked online, and for people it says they can have anti-biotics.

Who knows! lol

There are various strains of Campylobacter the most common being C. jejuni and C. coli.

I think C jejuni is the one most usually associated with dogs and as it is not species specific it can be passed to humans.

Dogs have got much stronger digestive systems than humans so can tolerate infected food much better than we can, I would say to make a dog ill it would need to receive a high dose or have a compromised immune system.

One of the main culprits of Campylobacter is raw chicken, freezing does not kill the bacteria only cooking does.
As I have said before this is one of the reasons I don't like the BARF diet not really from the dogs point of view but because of the cross contamination within the house to floors/surfaces and of course the dogs mouth (worse if you have a bearded breed) .Most BARF feeder tell me they feed the meat outside so it is safe, I would be really worried about feeding things like raw chickens wings if I had a baby or weak elderly person in the house.

Factory farming and keeping chickens in close proximity to produce cheap meat /eggs resulted in a huge number of the national flock being infected (also with salmonella) this is why they started pumping chickens full of antibiotics until they realised it was making the bacteria resistant to them.

This is may be the reason some dogs are prescribed antibiotics, to prevent the contamination being passed to humans.

Doctors now try not to prescribe anti biotic to humans unless they really have to because of the growing resistance to them.

Here is an interesting article I saw a while back, doesn't bother me but would if I fed raw chicken.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2115671.stm


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I feed my dogs BARF but everything is frozen before being defrosted and fed. Freezing and cooking get rid of most of the nasties apparently.

Glad your pup is on the mend.