Border Terrier with stomach problems

hi everyone,

I'm new to this board but a friend recommended your website to me.

I have a Border Terrier who turned 3 in December and on the 20th December was vomiting bile and mucus blood stools. She was put on anibiotics and steroids and her diet was changed by me to Natures Diet (previously on JWB wet food for 2 years). This Monday (a couple of days after the antibiotics had ended) she again was vomiting bile and blood mucus stools. The vet has again given her antibiotics and steroids and something to line her stomach. The vet also recommended me changing her food again to Hill Science Plan Senstive Stomach. I'm sceptical though as I was thinking about using Burns dry food instead. I do want the best for her though and I would like to settle her belly quickly for her sake. Do you guys know which dry food would be better? I have heard contradictorary stories about Hills and that Burns might be a better try for her.

I hope you guys have some words of wisdom for me.

Hello again and thank you
Zoe bugzey1

Hi and welcome to dogsey

hello sis fancy seeing you here he he x

hi and welcome, you will probably get better advice if you post this in dog health.

However my inclination would be to not change the food again, if she was doing ok on the JWB for 2 years why was the food changed - did the vet think it was food related.

It sounds like she is perhaps got something else going on and by changing the food I wonder whether its actually perhaps making the whole thing worse?

hopefully someone else can help..

Hi Zoe welcome to Dogsey .

Was there a reason you changed the food in the first place. I would think twice about changing you dog to a dry food if it has a sensitive tummy and has always been on a wet food/ for three years. Burns do a wet tinned food which is quite good. If you change any food it is best to do it gradually over a few days by substituting a little of the old food for the new, this is particularly important when changing to a dry food when this should be done over 7/10 days.

If your dog has some form of gastritis it is best to give the tummy a rest for 24 hours with just water, then for a few days feed small frequent meals of bland easily digested food until you get a solid poo. Boiled rice with a little white fish is good (you can buy frozen fish quite cheaply in the supermarket, coley or cod in packs of 6 blocks) or cooked chicken with the skin removed (most mass produced chicken is very fatty nowadays because it is reared so quickly and you don't want your dog to have a lot of fat).

Hi and welcome you've been given great advice above and if she still has an upset tummy mashed potatoes is good and another trick is to cook an apple and feed the cooled mashed pulp as the pectin in it helps stop the runs and settle the stomach.

IS this a new thing with her, has she done anything like it before? Is it possible she has an infection and the anti-biotics are not the correct ones for curing this problem? Why was she put on steroids?

hi thanks for your responses. She was put on steroids as the vet recommended this. I'm not too happy about the steroids and will not take them next time for her. Yes the vet believes it's allergy related and probably related to her diet so I was told to put her on Hills Sensitive stomach but I'm not keen on Hills. I have put her onto Burns pork and potatoe and she loves it so I guess for now I will see how she goes. However if she is ill again in 2-3 weeks then I guess I will be back to the vets and back to square one. Thanks again for all your advice I will perhaps try the Burns wet food if she is still ok in 2-3 weeks. The Natures Diet seemed to agree with her but once the anitibiotics had ended give or take a day or two she was being sick and blood mucus with solid poo. Very confusing for her and me, poor little thing. Still she is better for now. Fingers crossed the diet change as recommended by the vet will do the trick. Kind regards Zoe

Hi Zoe could you let me know the result of your dogs treatment,I have a 3 year old Border Terrier bitch with exactly the same problem.My dogs problem returns infrequently and I believe it is diet,she is otherwise fit well and lovely.Best wishes Gordon.

Do you think as these things are "one offs" that it could just be a picked up infection? There is always loads of things like that going around and something that affects any dog so infrequently, is perhaps not related to the actual dog or diet at all.