Mini almost died on friday!

drmom777

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#1
A few days ago I finished a dog food change. Mini had a little loose stool, but was generally fine. On Friday I had to go into the city. Friday morning she had a tiny bit of bloody stool. Steve called the vet. She was happy and playful. A little later that she started throwing up and having diarrhea, which rapidly turned to blood. Steve promptly took her to the vet who ran a ton of blood work as she rapidly went downhill. He had started an iv, but didn't think she would make it. By this time blood was dripping from her rectum. He found nothing on the tests except hemoconcentration. Even the white count was normal. All this time he had been grilling Steve on whether she could have possibly gotten into some rat poison, but the hematrocrit would have been low, not high.

We thought maybe she had eaten one of my daughter's depakote pills, which she sometimes hides instead of taking, but that wouldn't have accounted for all the symptoms. We are grateful for that, Molly said if it was that, she would kill herself. I got back from the city, and when I ran into the vet's office he was flipping a book and came up with Hemorrhagic Enterocolitis. Evidently after a food change this sometimes happens, especially in young, small dogs. It is always fatal except with the prompt administration of iv fluids.

He wanted us to take her to the emergency vet for the weekend, but I convinced him to let us take her home with bags of fluid. I just thought that if all she needed was iv fluids and she might not make it anyway, she would be a lot more comfortable in her own home instead of a cage.

So we took her home with the fluids and a second iv kit just in case. I put her on a waterproof sheet padded with beach towels in the middle of our bed and hung the fluids from the ceiling fan.

Overnight she did ok. She stopped bleeding, finally, and started peeing. By morning she had run out of fluids and looked perkier. The vet called at eight-thirty and said to try her on fluids first and then to move to rice and chicken. We got her to take some chicken broth, and then the rice. By this morning she had regular dog food and was able to go out and play.

This afternoon she was ready to go for a hike on the mountain. Except for some residual diarrhea you would never know there was anything wrong with her. I am now optimistic, though I worry about organ damage. Knock wood she will continue to improve.

Has anyone ever heard of this? It was beyond scary, as I tried to look at a future of Uncle Fred without Mini. They just belong together and we love them.

I assume she will at the very least have digestive problems for some time as she regrows her intestinal epithelium.
 
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#2
Wow... this sounds scary... I have never heard of anything like this before and have changed dog foods more time then I can count...

I am so glad to hear that Mini is doing better and hope she continues to heal.

Keep us updated.

Elissa
 

ACooper

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#4
OMG!

(((((((HUGS)))))))) to you and even more to poor little Mini! How scarey out of the blue like that :yikes:
 
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#5
WHOA! Never heard of anything like that either, and before Innova I switched dog foods all the time :eek:

It's a relief that Mini pulled through. We'll concentrate on her being back to her regular self in short order!
 

Baxter'smybaby

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#6
wow--I am so glad to hear that she is doing ok!! This is a good thing to know about---so many people do change foods periodically. I sure hope she continues to improve.
Good to see you here again!
 

Zoom

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#7
man I'm glad that Mini is ok!!! I've heard of HE before, have even taken a client's dog to the vet to get it checked. My vet said the same thing, except that he added that the females tend to get it easier than the males. So if you have a small female dog, keep an eye out. Younger needs a stricter eye.

Again, I am so glad that Mini pulled through!
 

drmom777

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#8
Thanks for the support,. It was really horrible. My daughter and I cried all the way home on the train. I still feel a little cautious about saying everything looks Ok- but she looks good.
 

Ash47

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#9
So happy yours made it through! What a relief you must feel. I just lost my Chihuahua a little over a week ago to HGE (Hemmorhagic GastroEnteritis.) She had all the same symptoms. It was so sudden. And I read the same thing... Small breeds, especially toys, female and the ages of 2-4 years old.
 
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#12
It definitely sounds like Hemmorhagic Gastro Enteritis to me too. This is what Hannah contends with. We have to be VERY careful, because with her, a simple bout of diarrhea can turn life threatening in no time.

They aren't sure what causes HGE, but some suspect stress.

Sorry to hear about Mini's episode, but glad she pulled through.

Hannah is on Gastricalm - might be something to look into in case it happens again. It's helped alot for Hannah.
 

smkie

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#14
I have never heard of anything like this before. I have puppies bleed like that from parvo and that breaks a person's heart. THere is nothing more desperate. I am so relieved she is on the mend. Maybe a note should be made in dog nutrition and stickied so others with small dogs scan avoid such a horror.
 

drmom777

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#16
Mini continues to look good. Now on second day of real food. I now am without a car and am going everywhere by bike, so I had to peruse the grocery store for lamb and rice similar to Canidae. Settled on Lassie Natural Way- and fed it with fear and trepidation. So far so good. I have never seen so many lamb and rice dog foods whose ingredients feature corn gluten meal and poultry by-products. What a scam.

I am now going to take the dogs out to play. On my bike, with Minnie in a basket and Uncle Fred trotting along behind! It's so good to have a living Beagle!
 
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#18
Glad to see your dog is ok, it's always scary when they come down with something really bad like that.

My last dog had a milder version of this. He seemed to be ok after we switched his food to the "Senior" type food, but what started out with a mild case of runny stools turned to blood. It was kind of late, so we took him to a vet nearby who was open later than my vet was then.

I didn't know it then, but this particular vet is well known to suspect the worst, ALWAYS. He practically diagnosed him with Parvo soon after seeing him squirt blood. A 10 year old dog in perfect health getting Parvo? I was kind of skeptical, but let him take blood for tests and he gave him an IV. I let him stay overnight, and in the morning, I went to see him and he was fine. The vet comes into the area he was in and says he didn't think it was Parvo, but said he probably had a couple of other things, and HGE was something he mentioned. None of them were good. He wanted Gus to stay another day and run more tests, but I decided I would take him home and go to my regular vet the next day. It was partially to save money, but mostly because I didn't see how he could recover so quickly from something supposedly so serious.

We gave him chicken and rice, and he made a nice looking BM that night, and was fine from that point on until he blew a disk in his neck a few months later, something that would take more than a year to resolve, and Gus, due to sitting around so much while it healed, would finally get "old". He lived almost 3 more years after his neck problem resolved, before he had to be put down at 14.5.
 

drmom777

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#20
Mini looks great. I would think it was all a dream, but I still have the empty iv bags in my bedroom garbage.
 

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