Piper and her friend, Giardia

It feels like rain is a constant in our area at the moment.  The other day, I heard that there was a yellow thing in the sky - I had to run out to see what it was. It looked very much like something I remembered from the past, which was called the sun!

Piper as a puppy.

Yes, it has been that wet - not bad for the driest continent in the world.  We seem to go from extreme wet to extreme dry, and all on the same day (it feels like). 

With the rain comes mosquitoes, malassezia infections and now giardia.  And our dog Piper was recently diagnosed with giardia. She has since made a full recovery, but it was the start of many other cases since then.  We are now up to 5 confirmed cases - and no, none of them met Piper before hand. She is not our "typhoid Mary" but the rain is!

Giardia is a protozoal parasite that causes chronic diarrhoea in us as well as our pets.  Infection occurs from drinking faecal contaminated water.  We suspect Piper got infected from drinking from the muddy water puddles at the dog parks she frequently visits.  She could just have easily got it from drinking tap water.  We will never know.

What I do know is that after she had diarrhoea for 4 days, and was not improving, we sought "vet advice".  We originally thought she had diarrhoea due to a slight change in her food, or perhaps she got into the rubbish (as puppies do). 

We wormed her and we fed her chicken/rice for a few days.  Does this type of treatment sound familiar to you?  My guess it does, as it is often what most of you would do aswell when your pet is unwell.  Us vets are also typical pet owners too - we try the simple stuff too.

Giardia Test - Two bands is a positive result 

A vet check is always in order. Often people ring up for "advice", but as there are so many causes of diarrhea, it is not something that advice can be given for.  I would hate to give advice to the effect of feeding small amounts of bland food often, if the diarrhoea is due to parvovirus.

Piper had her "vet check" with me - she came into the vets, and had a full examination (which we also found that her first lower first premolars weren't erupted either - but that is another story)..

There are a lot of tests that we can perform on site  which gives us very quick results.   We performed a faecal floatation and a giardia antigen test.  The Giardia antigen test gives us a result within 5 minutes.

Sadly, Piper's result was positive, but the good thing was - we had a diagnosis, and a treatment started.  She was normal within two days, but we treated for 5 days.

Just a quick note about this giardia antigen test - One band is a negative (or below detectable limits) result, and two bands is a positive result.

There are two options of medications - either metronidazole (which we chose for Piper) or fenbendazole - both need to be given for 5 days.

As you will recall, there are many causes of diarrhoea in a pet, and there is no law that says that the diarrhoea will be due to one thing only.  We have had cases where the pets had multiple infections, all of which needed different treatments.. 

The take home message:

Any time your pet has diarrhoea, then a vet visit is in order.  Take along a poop sample for testing, just in case, especially if it has been for more than 4 days. Don't muck around as pets can dehydrate very quickly.  Allow your vet to do the tests to identify the cause of the infection.

What if all the tests are negative?

There are a whole range of tests and treatments that will need to be done.  Sometimes the ones we start off with don't give us any information. We then have to dig further... it is like any other mystery - you keep on digging until you get the solution.

All of us here are for happy healthy pets, always. Let us help your pet by bringing them in to us when they are unwell, so we can help them get better.

I am Dr Liz, the mad vet from Russell Vale Animal Clinic in Bellambi.  Any questions?  Call me on 02 42 845988 or email.