Hi everyone,

I have a red husky male named Aspen. He's about 2.5 years old, and I'd say about half a year ago - a year ago I posted on here asking for help as to why my dog was having absurd amounts of diarrhea, not eating, losing weight, puking etc.

I was previously on Acana Pacifica, someone suggested that his protein levels in the food (I think ~60%?) could be too high, and I read a lot of members feeding their huskies TOTW. So I switched to TOTW Pacific Stream, think its like ~40% protein? Aspen did great, he was fine with it, and I finally thought I found the cure.

It hasn't been until recently, I'd say about a couple weeks. He's been acting up again. For the past 5 days, his pooping would go like this:

poop diarrhea, more diarrhea.
not eat
finally get hungry and eat
poop rock hard stool
eat, randomly puke it up
then explosive liquid diarrhea. like a cartoon, his tail goes up and a stream goes shooting out of liquid diarrhea. no chunks or anything in it.
eat, then the next morning have completely straight rock hard poop.

this has been going on and on in random patterns and recently it's been morning liquid diarrhea, night time hard poop. then next day reversed.

I can't figure it out!?!?! his only downfall is his absurdly sensitive stomach and gastrointestinal track and it's the most frustrating thing ever. I know that huskies are a sensitive breed, but how can he go from 100% hard as a rock logs of stool, to 100% straight liquid, within a matter of hours?!

My girlfriend keeps saying he has inflammatory bowel disease or whatever that is. I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations on what to do now? or if anyone has experienced this before?

I come here because I trust the opinions of people here more than some veterinarian trying to rip me off and charge me for everything under the sun, and then try to pitch to me to buy their 'special diet food'. . .

The one thing that I'm kind of leaning towards is, perhaps I need to continually rotate his food? i.e. TOTW pacific stream, TOTW grass lands, TOTW praire, or whatever? perhaps keep different types of protein changing? maybe his stomach gets too weird over the pacific stream? (1 yearish)

Any help is highly appreciated! Thank you!

It doesn't surprise me that no one has touched this ... there are times each of us has experiences that we can pass on, there are also times where it really behooves us to not say anything. This is one of the latter.

Husky's have sensitive stomachs - well, some do, mine have pretty much cast iron stomachs so I can't relate. But trying to advise you in your situation is really touch and go - I'm not a vet ( or even close ) just have a few years of dog knowledge and I know that if Aspen were my dog I'd be looking for the most trustworthy vet I could find.

For a decent writeup on IBS see this Web MD link.

From the symptoms you describe though, I'd be less inclined to think it's a food problem ... but I have no idea what it might be.

Al is probably right on about no one commenting, this is a difficult problem that us forum members may not be able to help you with. Going to the vet is my first recommendation, simply to rule out IBS or worms or parasites. Just because Aspen had no worms last week, doesn't mean he didn't pick up something this week. So a vet visit to rule out everything is important. Just because your vet says try my food, doesn't mean you are obligated to, get the diagnosis, and move on from there.

Aspen may have an allergy, since both kibbles you mention is high in fish content Aspen may not tolerate fish well, many quality foods use more than one type of fish. Many people swear by rotation diet, but since Aspen has never had a happy belly, rotation may not be wise. Although switching to a different protein in the TOTW line may benefit him, and you don't necessarily have to slowly mix in say the bison (I never can remember what each name is, just the different protein, lol). Also you have to consider what else he eats during the day, as far as treats and such.

My girl is quite sensitive to duck, however if duck is far down the ingredient list she does ok. She can not tolerate anything corn or anything with food dyes, she has similar problems as Aspen, although not as severe. She flat out does not like fish, haha, so I am limited to turkey, chicken, beef, venison, bison.

On a side note, my kitty can not eat any type of fish and will be exactly like Aspen, she also was diagnosed with acid reflux and is grain intolerant. A cat that can't eat fish, lol.

Until you can see a vet to rule out a medical problem, try another flavor, or do an elimination diet, or a bland diet.

I agree with the bland diet.

Boil beef, chicken and/or white rice. Plain yogurt to add in is fine too. Feed that for a couple weeks and slowly add in a new food. I would guess the fish issue as well... I know the first time I gave Okami fish, I regretted it.... she had the stinkiest farts for days... also be weary of grains. Sometimes that is a huge issue, so try a grain free kibble with a regular meat as the first ingredient, like turkey, chicken, beef etcetera.

See your vet, get an allergy test done, also test for parasites, worms, or any other health issues that can mess with the poopy process.

Best of luck.

I wanted to add, always have a can of pure pumpkin, a couple of table spoons helps with both soft  and hard stools. To add to Lucy's bland diet, you can skip the rice (if grains are an issue) and use steamed green beans, steamed carrots, or you can try boiled white or sweet potatoes, hard boiled egg. The bland diet can be quite useful, and it's ingredient limited, so you can try things to see what sits well with him.

Hey guys, thanks for all of the advice. Sorry for the late response.

Update: my girlfriend thinks Aspen now has a UTI, (her dog had one multiple times so she knows the symptoms etc) because he's been pissing a lot and it smells awful and it's super yellow and he's super dehydrated drinks a lot of water. but that this isn't related to his stomach / eating problems?

Apparently the day that I left town, Aspen had vomited straight bile into his crate, enough to fill the bottom pan. This happened 3 or 4 times, then he vomited on the balcony etc. For the next few days he then proceeded to have liquid hard diarrhea, hard poop, back and forth as mentioned (after I switched him to a different TOTW). My girlfriend was watching him and told me that he hadn't eaten for like one day, even kibble, even kibble with fish oil on it, and would only eat some of her raw frozen she has for her dog.

I guess nobody here can really figure out what the problem is, and a vet is definitely needed for this, however, I would like to ask if anyone can give me any ideas of what might be the cause so that I don't go into my vet appointment with their mindset of guess and check until I'm a thousand bucks deep and they finally come up with the answer.

- Diet?
- Stomach?
- Blockage?
- Allergy (don't want to have to do a ridiculous allergy test.. )

As far as the bland diet, I have done the green beans / carrots / hard boiled egg before. Does anyone recommend anything else? Also -- I have used the can of pumpkin before, and it definitely works, my issue is that I don't want to have to supplement his meal with pumpkin for his entire life!!!

Thanks guys!

Sorry I haven't commented, I haven't been around the forum much, but I have a very similar issue with my dog, although, he doesn't vomit, he frequently has loose stools and will go through boughts of time where his nick name is squirt. I actually finally feel like we are getting past one of those phases. He's been back to normal for about a week now.

Here's what works for him, and I think I figured out the latest 'fix' that seems to have really made his stools much more normal.

Food: Zignature Turkey formula, and brothers complete venison and egg allergy formula
Supplement: Brother's food grade diatomaceous earth
Snack: sam's yams sweet potato rawhide
Treats: brother's grain free biscuits, stella and chewies freeze dried turkey meal mixers, or just plain kibble

Morning (6:30 or 7 am): 2/3 cup zignature, 1/3 cup brother's venison, 1 tsp DE supplement, with a couple tablespoons of water to make sure he ingests the DE

Evening (6:30 pm): 2/3 cup zignature, 1/3 cup brother's venison

Snack before bed (9:30 or 10 pm): Sam's yam

I think the DE was really the key. It seems to have made a huge difference for him and I'm really happy about finally trying it out.

Also, as soon as I use up the zignature, I plan on switching entirely to brother's but I had just bought a new bag of zignature when I discovered brothers, so I will use it up before ordering a bag of turkey and egg from brothers.

Lastly, in terms of the urinary issues combined with the diet stuff and whatnot, it might be a good idea to have his thyroid checked.

Not sure if this will be of much help but Gabby has a issue if she has excessively drank to much water. This would happen on days she would go to daycare and they have a large amount of water she could drink. She would get home and her stomach would be extremely bloated. Almost to the point where I thought she had bloat other then the fact her stomach wasn't sensitive and she wasn't at all lethargic. But she would be up all night every 2 hours with the Hersey squirts. She would be fine by the next day and her poop would be solid again. After we realized the issue, we had the day care monitor her water and she has been fine since. We also suspect they were giving her lots of treats but they say they weren't.

@wpskier, first of all thanks for your input, secondly, I had some questions for you

1- so how long did your dog go through these boughts of the squirts? when I think back on Aspen I think his were like ~3 weeks/1 month? (is that normal? )
2- Brother's food grade diatomaceous earth -- this supplement, do you feed it to him/her every day? and will you continue to do so for forever?
??? question for other husky owners ??? has anyone else tried diatomaceous earth?? I just feel like there has got to be a way to fix Aspens stomach issues without adding extra stuff (or maybe not?)
3- I thought my issue with acana/orijen was the high protein content of like ~60%. just gave brothers venison and egg and that has a whopping 90% of protein. just curious if anyone has any other insight

@lepp, I don't think his issue is with drinking a lot of water as your husky is still a puppy and mine is about 2.5 years old. maybe I'm wrong though, but I don't really think the water drinking is a cause..

I'm also trying to figure out what is going wrong with my dog to make him NOT HUNGRY... Aspen is the posterchild of food motivated, when he's not all sickly and weird, he will eat anything and everything. not seeing him eat is the strange part... also at the dog park he like chews up mulch and mud (not sure if this is just a husky thing, or because it helps his tummy) because later that night he pooped the dirt in my room that came in rock hard stool form

1. Well, I've only been using the DE for about a week now, but I would like to ween him off of it after a few months and then use it once a month for a few days as a preventative. It acts as a wormer.

2. His stomach problems usually get set off by something (this time, I suspect that it was picking up giardia when hiking), but last long after the initial problem has been fixed. For example, say he gets set off by something (can be as simple as anxiety in a new situation, or too many new treats), it will continue off and on for 3-5 weeks. Just when I think he's back to normal, bam, sludge puddle. So, then it's trial and error until he gets back to normal... We are now on about 10 days of solids.

3. In terms of protein content, there are two different statistics and I think you might be confusing them. The 90% protein advertised by brothers means that 90% of the protein content is meat based. So, say there are 10 grams of total protein, 9 of them will come from meat. Whereas some use potato or pea protein to make the higher protein content higher relative to other ingredients. Overall protein content of the food (ratio of protein to other ingredients) is 32%. Which is on the high side, but not overly so. Zignature protein is 31%, Orijen is 38%. http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/brothers-complete-allergy/

I'd also like to mention that anything with chicken in it is a big no no for Diz. It's guaranteed to cause diarrhea, and might sometimes set him off for a few weeks before I figure out what's going on.

In terms of eating dirt/mud, Diz does it too, and I think he does it when he's thirsty.

In any event, I'd say pick a new food, totally different brand and flavor that only has one protein, and I'd recommend turkey. No treats, no people food, and no dirt. Do a 48 hour fast of no food, water only, and then give him several servings of it throughout the day. Also, keep in mind if he is on antibiotics for the uti, that can cause diarrhea. Once you get the uti cleared up (which you won't know unless you do a urine sample at the vet), and he goes off antibiotics, you can start rebuilding his digestion.

My theory is that (at least with my dog), once the diarrhea starts, it's very hard to get his tummy to settle down and takes a while, so it's like building from the ground up. It sort of snowballs on itself and everything I try seems to make it worse. With Diz, it happens 3-4 times per year, and I haven't pinpointed exactly what sets it off. The zignature food has been very helpful though, and I've gone through 3 bags of it. It's the first food he was stable enough that I purchased more than one large bag.

Also, there's a difference between a food intolerance vs. a food allergy. Diz definitely has a chicken intolerance.

I will add to Jenn's statements, she gave you excellent advice. I had to deal with this issue as well, not to the extent that Jenn has because I figured out the 3 causes for Miya, grain intolerance(intolerance typically is loose stools/vomiting, I think an allergy would appear differently such as through the skin and excessive itching, correct me Jenn if I am wrong on that), food dye issues and tape worm. DE is used on a frequent basis in the wolf dog and wolf diets, I studied their diets a lot for 2 reasons, prior to getting Miya I had considered jumping in and getting one and secondly I believe a husky is less removed from the wolf than say a beagle, so I wanted to mimic a similar diet, especially after dealing with Miya throwing up and loose stools on a constant basis. My next step, had I not solved it, would have been DE. I do believe on the well educated wolf dog community they do as Jenn does, use DE everyday and then use as a preventative, so on a semi frequent basis, and they use it for various reasons, mainly for a dewormer, flea and tic preventive, and for general tummy problems.

As Jenn said you must cut everything out, it could be his treats that set him off. I will not feed anything with grain in it period. Lack of appetite could be he just doesn't feel good, or it could be he does indeed have tape worm, or a food intolerance(in which you need to figure out what is bothering him, elimination is the key).

Interesting Renee, I think there are some others on here that use DE, but I can't remember who...

I forgot to post this link regarding intolerance vs. allergy, I found it pretty helpful.

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2111&aid=143

MeaganB uses it, if I recall correctly. I found DE quite interesting in that people use it all over their house and will take it personally for stomach issues, don't think I could go that far. Have to take a look at the link.

1. Ok will look into getting some, would you recommend from brothers? any size in particular?

2. yeah your issue sounds exactly like mine. 3-5 weeks on and off, weird, out of the blue, straight liquid puddle.

3. Thanks for the clarification

Yeah I don't really even give Aspen any treats anymore simply because of the fact that I want him to poop normally. Gave him a clementine here and there inside of a kong type thing because he seems to love them, but won't be doing that again.

I only purchase foods with 'GRAIN FREE' so I'm not too worried about the grain aspect in his diet, as many other individuals on this forum feed their dog TOTW (also used to do Acana/Orijen).

MiyasMomma - you said you figured it out but if you hadn't, you would have used DE. What conclusion did you come to that made you figure it out for your dog? new dog food? what do you feed your husky?

You can get any food grade DE, it doesn't have to be from brother's. I just ordered from them because I happened to be ordering some food from them as well.

Jenn, read the link, and i guess I do have a handle on the difference, and for Aspen's owner, read the link gives you some valuable info to work with.

Jenn, through a lot of my research, reading, etc., wolf dog tummies are very similar to husky tummies, the similarities I deduced was because of wolves natural diet is far different than a domesticated dog's. Wolf dogs/wolves are primarily bred to huskies, mals and gsd's, I just deduced that a pure husky would then have similar feeding needs. It has worked for me, but like with you it is all about elimination and finding what will consistently work the best. With Miya it's a Bison based kibble with beef bones, turkey and then chicken(in that order of what works well), I use the beef bones to keep her bowel movements consistent. I have found grain free treats work best, although there is a biscuit I use, when I can get it, Louisiana Crawfish, from Delca Corporation, ThinkDog brand, that gives her a crunch with no corn, wheat or soy and made in USA.

Switching to grain free, feeding treats that are cow, or pig ears and found a jerky made in us or South America, the jerky is from Barnsdale Farms, made in USA sourced in US and Canada, and is limited ingredients like the above biscuit I mentioned, the jerky has 4 ingredients. I feed TOTW Bison flavor only, I feed a raw meaty beef bone about 3 times a week. I will give her raw beef scraps when prepping my meals, she will get a boiled turkey burger(4 ounces) and I do(since it is cooked) mix in with her kibble on days she doesn't get a bone. 3 or 4 times a month she will have a scrambled egg. If tummy is bad, she will have 2 tablespoons of pumpkin for 3 days in a row(I freeze the remainder), and a couple times a month she will get 2 tablespoons of vanilla greek yogurt. I keep her food intake simple, the kibble is 2 cups max when she is highly active, on a low active day it goes to 1 cup(that's per day). Trial and error is the way i did it. She looked anorexic up until just recently, and from say June and currently she actually has an exceptional appetite, that she never had before. I also treat for tape worm as a preventive, since where we live she finds her own treats. Like I said Miya's problem was grains, food dyes and tape worm.

I can elaborate more if needed.

Got Aspen some:

TOTW bison
DE
also some capsule form of pre + probiotics and this other stuff
Also some UTI medicine

Hopefully I'll be able to remedy his issue in the next week or so, I got a thing of instant goat milk or something and gave that to him too, he drank it all down, and with the DE and stuff on his food, he started eating it extremely quickly and looked normal for once. Looks like a good start!

Thanks for all your advice and I'll keep you all posted.

I hope it works! Diz seems to absolutely love the DE too. He licks his bowl completely clean when I add it!

Can't figure it out...

I was delighted to see some hard stools here and there for the past week (though it's normally mushy/soft serve looking), thought the medicine and herbs were working.

Except for the past couple days, when aspen lifts up his tail and goes to poop, it just explodes a loud noise and straight liquid comes pouring out. He also puked in his crate last night and I'm pretty sure ate it, then puked more. Or he shit in his crate, then ate it, then puked up the shit.

This is the most frustrating thing ever. For the past month my dog has been more of a stress on my life than my best friend loving companion. All he does is piss, shit, puke, and I can't figure out how to solve it.

Got a fecal test last week and everything was OK, so what the heck!!!

Has anyone else experienced any of what I'm going through? If it's the dog food he's eating, how could he have super hard stools and then straight liquid? I don't give him any treats so that's not even a possibility. Have been giving him a pre/probiotic recently called micro flora or something in hopes that will help on top of the DE

Any help GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Jessel, at this point I would consider switching vets, try finding a holistic vet, I don't know where you are located, so that some of us could give you a recommendation. If neither of these are possible I would insist on starting some type of testing to see what he is intolerant of. There is something that causes great distress, it could be fish, or potatoes(in his kibble), chicken. There is something that sets him off and you must figure out what it is. I know some people are quite successful at raw feeding, I personally think that's the best way to feed, and issues like this go away. If his weight is ok, perhaps feeding no more than one cup of kibble per day split in two feedings. Then supplement with raw, feed raw 6 hours or so from the kibble, also give a raw meaty bone(try rib section, or t-bone section), the bone will help firm up, just make sure he isn't a heavy chewer. And always keep pure pumpkin on hand. The throwing up is what concerns me more, and there are several reasons for it, depending on how it looks.

My dog Faith had irritable bowel and some things you describe are similar (like the diarrhea one minute and rock solid stool the next) but other aspects are different. With Faith it didn't come and go, so there were no short or long periods where she did not have a problem. Even raw did not agree with her delicate tummy. We tried everything under the sun for her and (I feel like a broken record saying this yet again) the only thing that worked for her was Perfect Form which is an all natural digestive aid supplement made by The Honest Kitchen. Faith could not live without Perfect Form. One of Faith's symptoms, which I did not see you mention Jesselpark, was mucous in the stool all the time...even with the rock solid stools. Will Perfect Form help your dog? Who knows, every dog is different. I mention it because it might be worth trying.

Faith is no longer with us but we still keep a container of Perfect Form in the house for whenever our sibe has an upset stomach...it always works like a charm for all our dogs, past and present.

I'm with Renee on this, you have an obvious problem (that was an understatement, yes?) and I'd be thinking it's time to switch vets.

But I do have a few questions...
In one post you said that you had tried a bland diet, but never indicated what it was and what the results were.
You think his problems may not be related to the water, but I'd ask if you know the source of the, I presume, tap water. Some community tap water is so hard that it can affect us (and them). If that's the case then drinking a lot of water, as you've indicated he does, could be a problem.
(damn phone call!!)
I'll edit and add more later.