5.5 days after bringing our puppy home she tested positive for parvo and giardia. We got her through but three months later and she can’t eat anything but chicken, rice and pumpkin unless we want cow pie or diarrhea. We have her on a daily probiotic. She must eat from a slow feed bowl. Occasionally she will throw up a meal.

We have ruled out whipworm, IPS and other things from a full diarrhea panel. Two giardia tests since the original are negative.

We feel all the antibiotics from her parvo and giardia have destroyed her GI tract. Vet says find a nutritionist to give us a recipe for home made food. The breeder of our older Siberian says try a round of prednisone. A friend with an IBS lab gives a small amount of prednisone with every evening meal.

Does anyone have suggestions or success with IBS?

Its a problem ive been dealing with for awhile. Spider got parvo at 14 weeks old. We deal with diarrhea semi regularly. The best ive gotten is 90% of the poop is solid but the last 10% comes out like cowpies but hershy kiss sized. Also she doesn't just poop she walks and poops. That may be scat marking.

So ive been through almost every food that meets her requirements a few made things worse a few helped resolve some issues. You may want a limited ingredient diet. I think it was about 6 months before everything started to normalize.

About that parvo...it can go dormant and come back. They can shed the virus even years later. Your dog will probably always have some gi issues due to the parvo. If your dog is having any gi symptoms then it should be kept away from unvaccinated dogs.

You lucked put that it was gi parvo and not cardiac parvo. Here in Colorado the virus can stay dormant in the soil for over 5 years. I bleach my yard regularly just in case i dont want wild foxes and coyotes getting it

Prednisone is no joke. I would not give long term for IBS. It will settle the inflammation down in the tract but likely the instant you wean off it you will go back to where you started. A consult with a nutritionist wouldn't be bad just to get a feel for how they would approach a system that has been through so much. Cow pie poop or not you have to get some balance in her diet or the nutritional deficiencies you will be facing could do a lot of long term harm, especially to a growing puppy. What have you tried working her onto and how did you go about it that ended up getting you soup poop? What kind of transition and to what have you tried so far? Have you ever fasted her? Fasting can be really useful in giving the insides a little time to clean out and rest before starting to make a slow transition to new things.

All things we’ve tried to add to her chicken, rice and pumpkin were 75/25 for three days, 50/50 for three days, 75/25 (more new than chicken,rice,pumpkin) for three days then 100%. We never get to the 100%. As we added more kibble poo got worse and like a cow pie. We’d end up back on full chicken, rice and pumpkin and within a week and we will see pretty normal poo again. It was about 7-8 weeks after she came home from parvo/giardia treatment that the mucus in poo seemed to be gone! We felt like we finally had a small success.

When first home from 6 day parvo treatment we tried the food her breeder had her on which was Victor Select Nutra Pro Active Dog and Puppy formula. Vet had us try prescription Purina EN both wet and dry. Vet then had us try prescription Purina HA. We tried a tiny bit of crumbled Stella and Chewys, that had a bad reaction quickly. We tried Wellness Complete, another no. The store we get our other siberians food (Nutri Source) suggested limited ingredient Tuscan Natural Chicken since she does well with chicken. I’m scared to try this one and have another setback but that one was next on my list.

At six and a half months I know we’ve got to get nutrients in her that her body needs. This is why I was considering a short round of prednisone if my vet would agree.

Fasting was done once, it was before her IBS test. That broke my heart because this puppy is always hungry, it did give her tummy a break but no real success from it. Speaking of that we have been feeding 1-1/4 cups three times daily. Our older dogs breeder said try 1 cup four times a day. We’ve just started this and will do it as often as our schedule will allow. We give her no treats other than a piece of her baked chicken once in a while when trying to train on top of all this.

A couple of random thoughts.

Study out recently, in humans, found that probiotics or yogurt after antibiotic treatment actually increased the time for gut flora to return to normal. Maybe stop the probiotics?

Second random thought. 1.5 cups seems like a lot of food for a husky. Even a puppy. Maybe try cutting back to half/3/4 of a cup per feeding.

If you use the Prednisone, you risk a flare when you discontinue.

Huskies sometimes have difficulty with grain in their diet. My guy had puddi inng poop when eating kibble with cracked corn

Finally. Giardia can be difficult to catch in freak sample. Maybe she's not clear?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856261/#sec015title https://www.americanveterinarian.com/news/canine-parvovirus-infection-and-longterm-health read that or just the conclusion either way parvo has some long term problems particularly when it comes to gi issues. I think you should look at long term parvo effects, the loose stool may always be an isssue

If you swap up the chicken for another protein, like fish, or duck, but stick with rice and pumpkin, what happens? You might be able to swap to a home cooked diet slowly to get her system some proper nutrients. We need to get some organ meat in there. Tiny bits of liver, and I mean tiny as liver is rich. Sticking with cooling foods may assist as well.

Update.  Because baked and boiled chicken worked the only kibble I had tried was limited ingredient with chicken.  I was going to try something other than chicken and found square pet, specifically square egg.  All protein is egg and whey.  It works!  Great normal poo.  We had an apt set with an internal medicine vet and were going to have an ultrasound to start ruling out IBS and discuss rule outs for food allergies.  They called to reschedule and I decided to hold of.  I think we found something that works and has the nutrients needed for all life stages.  We feel like we’ve turned a corner.  Thank you all for your replies and guidance.

Oh, also wanted to note we’ve had 4 clear ELSA giardia results in the last 9 weeks. Our vet feels no more tests are needed on that anytime soon.