Small Dog With Chronic Colitis

[Her Majesty Dogmad]

A friend of mine has recently adopted a little 6 yr old female Pom from a pound. She's beautiful but has been to the vets for a stomach issue which has been diagnosed as chronic colitis.

I have experience of inflammatory bowel disease and kidney disease and had good results with my dogs on meds and special diets but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions of what she can do?

She is feeding only on rice and meat with Nutrigel and calcium powder which I'm presuming is what the vet has recommended.

Any other ideas or experience please? Does Chronic Colitis go away?

[cowanbree]

I have a dog with this and in my experience it has to managed rather than cured. He lives on a very bland diet and when he has a bout I have drops from a homeopath that work brilliantly and settle things down very quickly. I didn't find conventional vet treatment helped at all, in fact I was advised to have him pts

[cavvysavvy]

I have a dog with this and in my experience it has to managed rather than cured. He lives on a very bland diet and when he has a bout I have drops from a homeopath that work brilliantly and settle things down very quickly. I didn't find conventional vet treatment helped at all, in fact I was advised to have him pts

What is the product that you use from the homeopath? I would love to use something natural on my boy rather than antibiotics when he has an episode. He is currently on metron for his latest bout of diarrhoea which he has had for over a week, only beginning to clear up now!!!!

[best4koda]

Have you searched the net for some info on the diet. Someone here should be able to provide some info for you. In my search for my dogs on issues there is diet advice on the web. Have they determined what the cause of the colitis is? Diet, infection etc. Some of the foods to avoid if it's food related are quoted as "in the case of dogs are beef, dairy products and wheat, which are common in commercial foods and kibble".

What meat are they currently feeding with the rice?

[Dogsfevr]

I had a dog who also suffered bad colitis.

We didn't play around with a bland diet but made sure he didn't get to many treats or unneeded add ons.

We did give him flora max tablets which helped realign the gut bacteria & in my boys case found giving some apple a day to work very well.

I also found when he had his attacks to not panic because stress can make it worse,he was a very sensitive dog ,we just stuck to what was normal & accepted this was part of his life & the attacks would end quicker done this way then changing everything.

If we did give any antibiotics we used tribacteral which worked very well but we avoided meds unless a very bad case because whilst not pleasant nature generally fixed it it's way

Edited May 15, 2011 by showdog

[mita]

What showdog posted made sense to me. It parallels what sorted our tibbie girl who seemed to have acquired some food intolerance or irritable bowel syndrome. The vets were still conducting tests when diet hit the jackpot. But their thoughts had been this would not 'go away'. To my amazement, the symptoms have.

No processed food, chicken breast fillets, plenty of sweet potato, dollop of good quality yoghurt (for gut bacteria), fish couple times a week, sprinkling of physillium.

When I was casting around for advice, a number of excellent breeders (both here & overseas) remarked to me that a number of small dogs, in their opinion, just didn't do well on the usual dog foods. And it was best to stick with a fairly 'natural' one which suited the individual dog.

An unintended outcome has been that the groomer has twice asked what I feed this dog. Because her coat is now so healthy.

[Her Majesty Dogmad]

Thanks so much everyone, I've passed on all the replies/suggestions to my friend!

[Rappie]

Colitis is a symptomatic diagnosis - it's not specific for any one cause, which means that often there is a degree of trial and error involved.

It may reflect a food allergy, which is most commonly due to the protein source (often beef, lamb and chicken). In these cases, a hypoallergenic or novel protein diet trial are worth a go. Colitis can also be fibre responsive, but sometimes responds better to a low residue diet. Sometimes it is a reflection of inflammatory bowel disease.

Metronidazole (an antibiotic) is commonly used, particularly in cases where the colitis leads to blood in the faeces as it has an anti-inflammatory effect on the gastrointestinal tract.

Some cases with resolve with dietary modification, some require further investigation like endoscopy for biopsies. I have also found it useful in chronic and severe cases to test the Vitamin B12 and folate levels - although correcting these will not resolve clinical signs, it can help restore the body's levels while further investigation is done. Sometimes long term meds (steroids and others) are required, but ideally these are started after a more specific diagnosis is made.