Urgent prayers needed- 9 wk old Misty is very, very sick :(

[GoldenLover]

I need everyones prayers and support. Misty (my 9 week old Golden Retriver) is very, very sick. She has lost over 2 lbs in the past 6 days. Vet saw her today. How she does in next 12 hrs will determine if she pulls through or goes on IV tomorrow. :'-(

Vet thinks she may have Giardia but tested negative for it. She hasn't been eating or drinking hardly at all. She's been on meds since we got her, but now upped meds and have to feed her every two hours overnight. :-( I am really worried and freeking out

we got her on 9-14. On 9-15 we took her to vet. Thought diarrhea was due to food switch too soon. 9-17 took her back, put on Metronidazole 250 mg 2x a day and Pyrantel Strongid 2ml once every 10 days. Went back 9-21 (today) and more Metronidazole and now Panacur 0.5tsp 1x a day for 8 days. I haven't had a formed bowel movement out of her since we brought her home last Tuesday :-(

Vet has No clue. She's been tested for roundworm, tapeworm, toxcidia, geordia (snap test). All negative. Some of the other pups in her litter are sick too. The first one that got sick is now recovering and gaining weight back. But her sister is still in the same boat she's in. It's a real bad deal :-(

She has ate a little over a cup of soft food since her vet appt. at 4:30p. I have a bit mixed with her panacar now, but she isn't eating it yet. I put it right beside her and am mixing Pedialite in with her water to try to help with dehydration. I really, really need her to eat. I even tried cooking a hamburger and putting crumbles in to entice her. Nothing... She just looks at it and lays her head down beside the bowl :(

[chocolatepuppy]

Many, many prayers for your Misty.

[Catlady711]

Have they tested your puppy for Parvovirus or Coccidia?? Those are about the only two I can think of off the top of my head that can cause diarrhea that you didn't mention them testing for.

I hope your poor baby gets to feeling better very soon!! Thoughts are with you.

[shais_mom]

I didn't even know you got a new baby! She's in my thoughts and prayers for sure!

[K9karen]

OMG! How scary and awful!. Did you find out if there was a diagnosis of the pup that's recovering? Maybe it's something the pups got when passing through the birth canal. Whatever it is, I'm praying seriously that Misty recovers. :love::love:

[*LabLoverKEB*]

I'm so sorry to hear about little Misty! No fun for anyone. :(
That's horrible that the rest of the litter is sick... hmmm. I agree with CatLady, have you're vet test for parvovirus as well as coccidia, could be one of those.

Prayers on the way, and please keep us updated on her!:love:

[krazyaboutkatz]

I'm so sorry to hear this.:( Hopefully your vet will be able to diagnose her problem and treat her with the correct medicine. Lots of prayers and positive thoughts are being sent her way.

[Karen]

Prayers on the way, hope she survives this. I agree - it maybe be parvo, but we will pray that she and the others pull through.

[Freedom]

Prayers from RI, for Misty.

How terrible for the wee baby. They look so sad, just glancing at the food and turning away. Makes us feel awful. Huggles to both of you.

[Lilith Cherry]

My prayers for Misty too! I do hope she is feeling better today.

[Taz_Zoee]

Parvo was the first thing I thought of too.
I hope Misty pulls through.

[*LabLoverKEB*]

More prayers on the way for Misty, as well as her littermates.... :(

[luvofallhorses]

Lots of good thoughts and prayers coming your way. It could be parvo which is very serious. :(

[Bonny]

Good Thoughts & Prayers sent Mistys way. :love:

[Grace]

Is there any update on Misty?

[*LabLoverKEB*]

I'm curious as to what the outcome is as well...

[lvpets2002]

:love: Sending Lots of Prayers & Huggss for you & your Baby.. Sure hope your baby gets to feeling better real soon..

[Catlady711]

Any updates?:confused:

[GoldenLover]

Well we're not completely out of the clear, but we are making progress with Misty. At 6lbs, I started pushing water like crazy and started trying various types of soft canned food. I finally found a few she liked, and some she LOVED. Her favorites were the Wellness 98% meat cans- and though they're not for puppies per se and are normally used as a topper, she would scarf it down like there was no tomorrow. I was honestly at the point where I didn't care what she ate, just that she ate something. We got her up to 8lbs, then to 11. We took her back to the vet Friday for a follow-up and she was up to 12.8! I was really surprised to see that! We have started to transition her from the canned food back to Wellness and Orijen. She still gets about 1/3 can a day to entice her to eat, but most days she picks out the soft food and then pieces on Kody's a little throughout the day. It didn't seem like she was eating all that much again until I took her to the vet and they weighed her. Guess she's piecing on Kody's more than I thought! Since she's been eating more, her energy has started to come back. She still takes puppy-naps throughout the day, but I think it's normal for puppies to have short spurts of energy followed by a little nap. We've been working on housebreaking alot, but still having accidents at 2+ times a day. Her stool is still runny, diarrhea like, but she is gaining weight now. Still pushing water, mixed with Pedialite so she won't dehydrate. Some of the problem may be with the food, though. I'm still trying to find something that both dogs can eat (since she pieces all day on Kody's) that doesn't make them gassy/diarrhea-like. I don't know if that's all of it or not, she still may be harboring the sickness some. I don't know. :confused: Sadly, the vetrinarian is pretty much no help on this (which I'll discuss more in a moment).


The vetrinarian believes that she had Giardia- an intestinal parasite that the vet thinks she picked up at the breeder's. http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2102&aid=739 What baffles me about that though is vetrinarian never did any tests to see if she had it. He said that it was too hard to interpret the test results because you could get false positives, etc. In fact, he *never*, throughout this whole process, tested her stool. I was nearly screaming at him over the phone one day because of this. He said, "Well whether it's positive or negative I'd still recommend the same treatment". Grr! He also was the one who told us at 6lbs that we should put her down. Didn't wanna try treatment, didn't want to test- just wanted to put a 9 week puppy down???? It's time for a new vetrinarian, ASAP. The more I think about the whole thing, the madder I get. I wonder how many other dog owners have been told this who just listened and didn't question him, thinking that "he's the vet, he should know, right?" I wish there was a B.B.B. for Vetrinarians- or somewhere I could post about my experience with him to try to warn others. Does anyone know of such a thing?

Anyways back to Misty. She is doing much better, but we're not out of the clear yet. Still need to figure out why she's still getting diarrhea all of the sudden. And also, need to find a new vetrinarian.

[chocolatepuppy]

Good to hear Misty is eating and gaining weight. Please do find another vet! I'll continue to keep sweet Misty in my prayers. Please keep us updated.

[Freedom]

Wow, from under 6 pounds to 12.8 pounds does sound like you are on the right track!

Come on, Misty, get eating and get healthy!!!!

You can report the Vet to the state licensing board.

[Grace]

I'm so glad she is doing better.

What about the rest of her siblings? You mentioned earlier that some of them were also ill. Are they better?

In addition to checking on/reporting the Vet, I would do the same for the breeder. Since more than one was ill, there might be some unsanitary conditions that need to be addressed?

[GoldenLover]

The other pups all got better in around the same timeframe. Red pup got sick first, and was gaining weight back first. Then Misty and her sister got sick, but her sister got better a little quicker. Misty was the last one to get better, and also had lost the most weight of all of them.
The breeder has his hands wayyy too full. He had planned 2 litters at once (first mistake, because he works full time and his wife has horrible rapidly-progessing alzeheimers and doesnt take care of the puppies anymore). Then he had an accidental litter, and between the three litters he had 21 pups, each litter 1 week apart. He claims he is going to be slowing down due to his wife, and I do hope he is serious. He just isn't there enough to care for all of them and he can hardly handle his wife anymore. He's starting to look for homes to put her in so someone can be with her all of the time.

[lizbud]

I am glad to hear that Misty is getting better.:) I did have the same
concerns as Grace on whether the breeder had been told about this. I do
hope the guy stops breeding & gets the adults neutered & spayed. He has
enough to take care of as it is.

[krazyaboutkatz]

Thanks for updating us about Misty. I'm glad that she's gained weight and is doing much better.:) I've learned from past experiences to get second opinions about things and if I'm not satisifed with my vet then I'll just find another one. I was also having diarrhea/loose stool problems with my kittens and they did have giardia in the past so my vet did a snap test and it came back negative. She never told me that it was hard to test for this. She did say that they could have coccidia which is much harder to test for so we treated them for that. I finally had to change their diet as well and now they're on Wellness Core dry and will eventually also be eating Wellness grain free canned. After only being on Wellness Core dry for 1 week, their stools improved dramatically. I hope that Misty will continue to improve and do well. Lots more prayers and positive thoughts are being sent her way.

Here's a website where you can rate your vet. If the vet hospital isn't listed you can add it:http://www.vetratingz.com/. I hope you'll be able to find a much better vet. Good luck.:)

[Catlady711]

The vetrinarian believes that she had Giardia- an intestinal parasite that the vet thinks she picked up at the breeder's. What baffles me about that though is vetrinarian never did any tests to see if she had it. He said that it was too hard to interpret the test results because you could get false positives, etc. In fact, he *never*, throughout this whole process, tested her stool. I was nearly screaming at him over the phone one day because of this. He said, "Well whether it's positive or negative I'd still recommend the same treatment". Grr! He also was the one who told us at 6lbs that we should put her down. Didn't wanna try treatment, didn't want to test- just wanted to put a 9 week puppy down???? It's time for a new vetrinarian, ASAP. The more I think about the whole thing, the madder I get. I wonder how many other dog owners have been told this who just listened and didn't question him, thinking that "he's the vet, he should know, right?" I wish there was a B.B.B. for Vetrinarians- or somewhere I could post about my experience with him to try to warn others. Does anyone know of such a thing?



Very glad to hear Misty is doing alot better. Thank you for updating us.:)

As for not testing, some vets, in effort to save you money, will go with their instinct and simply treat what they suspect if it won't cause any harm to do so. What baffles me is that he was wanting to PTS the puppy without testing or treating at one point, that is definately not a good thing. I've also never heard a vet say it was too hard to interperet Giardia test results before.:confused:

Since I don't know your town or which vet you used, I can't look it up for you. But here is the link to the BBB where you can look up to see if your vet is in there already. http://www.bbb.org/us/Find-Business-Reviews/

Here is the link to the Ohio Board of Veterinary Medicine. They have links for complaints and to verify the license of a vet or tech.
http://ovmlb.ohio.gov/lv.stm

[Karen]

Definitely contact the Better Business Bureau about this vet. A Veterinarian is a business person just like anyone else. There is also an Ohio Veterinary Liscensing Board, and their website has a place to report a complaint.

See http://ovmlb.ohio.gov/ - and do follow through and make a complaint. You may save some future pups life by steering them away from this vet.

I am sooo glad Misty is doing better!

[Cataholic]

My vet often doesn't test, and just goes with the treatment. I totally appreciate this, as it saves me money.

I am so glad to hear misty is better!!

[GoldenLover]

My vet often doesn't test, and just goes with the treatment. I totally appreciate this, as it saves me money.

I am so glad to hear misty is better!!


I may have appreciated it more if the treatment he used had any positive effect on Misty. It didn't though, so he just prescribed more meds. Then when that Didn't work, guess what? More meds. There was a point where she was taking 4 different Rx's at one time, and he still hadn't tested at all. Not even a fecal float. Nothing. "But here's more drugs"?? All the while, Misty was losing weight like crazy. Down to 6 lbs, wouldn't eat, runny poo, becoming more and more lethargic every day. Poor babe! At 9 weeks, I hate to be loading the babe up with all those drugs if she didn't need them. His grand solution to this was to "decide how much you want to spend because I doubt she is going to make it through this. If she were mine, I would probably consider putting her down. Did your breeder include a health guarantee?". She's 9 weeks old, you haven't even tested, but now you're suggesting I put her down??? No way, Jose.