Background: Eve, (DOB 12-25-24), got her at 8 weeks old, pure breed GSD. Until 1/10/25, she was perfectly healthy..appropriate weight gain, healthy and regular appetite, playful spirit, good diet (Royal Canin GSD food), never had any diarrhea whatsoever or vomited in that first year. Only odd thing about her was that one of her ears never stood up.
My husband and I had never left her for any amount of time, but we went out of town 1/7/25 and my son watched her while we were gone. He knew and followed her routine but said she hardly ate while we were gone for those three days. The night after we got back she started having intense, odd looking and smelling diarrhea, which we now know is EPI related. I mention all this bc I read somewhere EPI could be triggered by stress (?).
Long story short, 2 weeks of the EPI cow patty poops, one 7 day round of metronidazole with probiotics, sonogram for blockage (neg) and vet suggested full blood panel. They mentioned EPI but in 20 yrs had only seen one case in their office. Note-I live in a metropolitan city outside of Atlanta.
Results: Folate 24, B 270 and TLI 1.2.
Note: while all of this was going on, she was STILL in great spirits, ready to play hard, never crabby or aggressive, although very hungry and thirsty
Started with 1 tsp VIOKASE (will be used DIANE enzymes moving forward---so expensive to use the other) on her Royal Canine GSD food with boiled chicken or pure dehyrdated chicken. Sometime put cheddar cheese or boiled egg. Within one week, poops improved and gradually have continued to do so. We feel she does best on one HEAPING tsp of Viokase per 2 cups of food, instead of just a level tsp. She has been eating 3 meals a day with 2 cups food/1 heaping tsp and then one night time snack of 1 cup food, 1/2 heaping tsp.
She poops about 4 times a day, where before this, it was 2 times a day.
She clearly has lost weight since the beginning of this and has not seemed to put on much in the last two weeks. I am taking her this week for a vet weigh in so I have scale consistency.
My question(s) is: What should next steps be? Should we retest her blood work, start B12, start a prebiotic, change her food to a lower fiber one?
At this point, we seem to finally have some "control" over this and I don't want to add something in the mix if I don't have to, but I worry bc she is so young, still growing, etc.
Any and all thoughts, suggestions, comments appreciated!
--Kim
SOOOOOoooo if and when (and this is a good possibility) you need an antibiotic for SID (if pre+probiotics don't work) then ask your vet for a 45 day/twice a day course of Tylan (Tylosin Tartrate antibiotic) to help get SID in check... Tylan is a macrolide antibiotic... it does not kill everything but rather jsut stop reproduction of more...
