[kobe]

TO HOUND DOG MOM AND PATTY,

I need your educated opinions on 2 issues

first, my bernese puppy-5 and 1/2 months old came to me from California Memorial Day weekend-diagnosed with giardia 3 days later he has been treated 2 times with the combination of metronidazole and panacur—the second treatment occurred in the setting of a negative stool test BUT the specimen submitted was several hours old before brought in to the vets office –i treated him because his diarrhea the second time was exactly the same as the first time—yellow and greasy–he got better but 2 weeks later-on monday 8/26–he again developed yellow ,greasy diarrhea–the stool specimen at 4am obtained was brought to the ANIMAL Medical Center in nyc 3 hours later–the specimen results 2 days later was negative–in the 2 days waiting ,he was started back on the same combination-metronidazole and panacur with a significant improvement in 3 days—this most recent episode ,he vomited twice during the night as well–12 hrs a fter his last meal-dinner– and afterleaving the Medical Center he had yellowish diarrhea with undigested rice seen in it—-that i put in his kibble 12 hrs prior–this was brown rice from a local chinese restaurant—previously, i only gave white rice but i was told brown rice was more binding——
to give you a little more information,icalled a human lab-QUEST-and was told a stool specimen would not be accepted unless placed in a container of theirs prepared with their preservatives so to speak———therefore the pup diarrhea clinically seems like giardia is the cause but the stool is negative—-do you guys think that the time delay before processing has led to a false negative result?
other possibilities are inflammatory bowel disease or pancreatic insufficiency which i cant believe—i am an adult cardiologist in nyc and all people with the above conditions are skinny and unhealthy looking !!–my pup is already 80 lbs at 5 and 1/2 months–hardly the appearance of an animal not absorbing nutrients from a chronic illness?
in summary, do you think that yellow greasy diarrhea could be caused by anything other than giardia?

my second issue is nutrition–Kobe is back on Hills i and d kibble-actually since i stopped NATURES VARIETY LARGE BREED PUPPY KIBBLE 2 weeks ago due to diarrhea-he has been on this I AND D—how long should i wait before transitioning him to better kibble given this weeks illness–antibiotics will be completed on september 5th?AND i have decide to use ZIGNATURE kibble–here is the problem: my breeders handout reads to use 1 cup of kibble 3x/day until 6 months of age then use 2 cups 2x/day after 6 months of age—the zignature company has recommended to give my pup 5 CUPS OF THEIR KIBBLE PER DAY!!
I am not an expert in nutrition-can you advise me how much i shoud give my pup of this kibble before 6 months of age but more importantly after 6 months—i dont know if their is a reason based on calories why 5 cups/day is recommended–i dont want to harm Kobe if i feed him only 3 cups/day
I APPRECIATE ANY AND ALL ADVICE-unfortunately, i know much about human hearts BUT very little about yellow,greasy diarrhea nor about how much of this ZIGNATURE TO FEED

THANKS SO MUCH,
KOBE’S DAD