Fellow husky owners,

My puppy's name is Aspen. He's almost 2 years old. For the past ~3 months, he has had on/off diarrhea issues. By this I mean, he would have hard as rock stool for ~2-3 weeks, and then randomly out of the blue he would have liquid diarrhea, usually in my crate when I got home from work. Evil or Very Mad This diarrhea would persist for about 1 week, and then it'll slowly get back to hard and normal stool, then sure enough out of no where liquid diarrhea, I'm talking explosive diarrhea, this has been a repetitive issue.

About a couple weeks ago (issue had been going for 2 months) I was rubbing him and found huge deer tick on him, then panicking I looked all over him and then found another smaller, normal looking tick. Then I was looking online and saw that Lyme disease is a result of deer ticks, and all of his signs started to make sense. He has been super lethargic lately (more than a normal husky), lost a bunch of weight, not really acting like himself and loss of appetite. The lack of appetite is most concerning to me because he used to crush all his food the instant I gave it to him and wanted more, but for the past week, I'll put his food out and he'll nibble on it and then walk away (he'll eat it later though of course, maybe it's the meds my vet gave). All of these issues, on top of the deer tick being the carrier of Lyme disease, I thought I had figured it out. I took him to the vet and they did a Lyme disease test and it came back negative.

The vet recently gave me medicine to take over the weekend, 2 different medicines and 1 probiotic, and his stool has been like orange/pumpkin color soft serve and mushy, puddles of it, so that clearly didn't work.

This is where I need your help!!! The vet tried to tell me that I'm feeding Aspen too high of protein content diet. I'm feeding him Acana Pacifica, which she said has like ~40% protein, and that the recommended is like ~16/18. The thing is, I don't know if she's just trying to sell me her prescription dog food that she recommends to make a profit or if this could actually be an issue? I've been feeding this to Aspen his entire life since he was 6 weeks old so I'm having trouble thinking that this is the problem. I've heard from multiple people on this forum before that they feed their huskies Acana and Origen, which are same brand and high quality dog food and I'm assuming they don't have any problems?

Given what I said above, would anyone recommend switching his food or have gone through this and fixed it that could lend some advice? If switching food, any brands that you would recommend? i.e. I think I've seen blue wilderness etc.

Aspen and I thank you for your help!

Has he had these issues ever since you put him on this food? What was the breeder feeding him before you got him. Super high protein food could upset him a little, but usually I only see that if they are coming up from really crappy food. Have they done a fecal test for worms, giardia, a billion other things that could cause diarrhea? I feed Diamond Naturals which is only 28%. If a fecal has come back negative for everything else then it probably wouldn't hurt to either dial back on the protein content for a bag or two and see how it goes, or switch him to a bland diet for a bit. There are several threads that go into resetting their stomachs with chicken and green beans. The flip flopping between hard and soft stools makes it a little hard to pin down.

Ami had explosive diarrhea when we first got him. Turns out, letting him have a large rawhide bone 3 days in a row was...really bad judgment. Impressively bad judgement   Peanut Butter, too. Then, most of the winter, on again off again "pudding poop". I was just plain feeding him too much (worried about the cold - he's outdoor dog with a purpose). I've switched his food to grain free and give him a beef bone just about every day and all poop issues are gone.

Also, one thing occurs to me - sometimes with people, if significant constipation, you can actually have what looks to be diarrhea but is actually liquid stool leaking around an impaction. (Gross, I know. Sorry for the image)