Hi all,

I have a bit of a problem with a 3.5 YO female. About 3 months ago she
went off her gravy and wasn't eating too much kibble either. She began
with diarrhea then loosing weight so we went to the vet. CBC and Chem.
Panel all came back normal except her red blood cell count (or blood
protein??) was a bit low. She was put on Amoxi twice a day for 10 days.
It seemed to clear up the diarrhea at first, but once she went off the
med it came back. I opted to have an exploratory done. The vet found
absolutely nothing. Her entire digestive tract was looked at, but no
biopsy. She came home with a script for Pedipred and Metro for 30 days.
We also decided she may have an allergy to the chicken gravy so we took
her off of that and began giving her Turkey baby food.

The diarrhea cleared up almost completely after a month, but her
appetite never really came back. She was still thin. I have her in
an isolation cage and one morning last week I came down to find her
hanging from a toe nail caught in her hammy. She was alive, but cold.
I don't know how long she hung there. I warmed her up, gave her some
warmed Turkey and then she slept the rest of the day. Obviously this
stressed her and the diarrhea came back with a vengeance, only now it
was very watery and explosive. I also noticed a small amount of frank
blood in her stool twice. I started giving her Pedipred again until
we could get in to the vet last Friday.

We've been to the vet again, she's taking Pedipred, Metro and
Sucralfate because she was occasionally grinding her teeth. She hadn't
lost any additional weight since her surgery 6 weeks earlier. I give
her a little bit of pumpkin in the morning or night, but not both.
She's barely touching her gravy (turkey) now at all, and only picks at
her kibble. Her stools are runny, appear to have little globules of fat
in it and it smells really bad. The color ranges from beige to dark
brown, no green.

I added a new food, Innova Ferrret because she showed interest in this
so she gets a mix of 8 in 1 45% protein kibble with the Innova, cooked
ground turkey and fresh water available 24/7. She seems to prefer the
Innova but I've also been syringe feeding her about 10mL of watery
gravy every few hours.

I'm at a loss as to what to try next. She's so thin. I had been giving
her Ensure just after surgery, but it seemed to make the diarrhea
worse. Any suggestions, or should I wait a bit longer to give the meds
a chance? She's been on them now for four days.

Thanks,
Leslie

[Posted in FML 6152]