Chocolate Lab with Iriritable Bowel Disease

Pipp

Hi folks,
I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about dogs with Irritable Bowel disease.
One of our dogs - a 2 year old chocolate labrador called Jake had been having some dietry problems for a while culminating in being hospitalised with chronic colitis and gastro-enteritis. Because it was happening so often and for no obvious reason as we are so careful about what he eats the vet has been doing a series of tests to see if he can figure out what is causing these bouts of sickness.
Anyway, he put Jake on a prescription diet and a long course of antibiotics, and everything seemed to be ok until the tablets finished and back came the diahrea. SO we went back to the vet. Now it seems he wants to do a biopsy on Jake to see how damaged his intestine is as he thinks its an inflammatory bowel disease that Jake has and its preventing his gut working properly hence the diahrea.
I might add that the dog had been an absolute divil for eating poo right from day one and the vet has said that the reason he was doing this was that his small intestine wasnt taking all the food out of the poo so when Jake smelled it he smelled food - however disgusting that is. We tried to stop him doing it, and I stress to add that the dogs are never alone for more than 4 hours at a stretch as we have a dog sitter available when one of us isnt at home. Anyway, the fecker found opportunities to eat poo despite being watched like a hawk:rolleyes:
Anyway, the vet thinks its Inflammatory Bowel Disease and that steroid treatment might be the next course of action - only the biopsy will tell. If anyone has any insight or advise into this I would greatly appreciate it.
Oh, and some healing thoughts for Jake too. He's a member of the family now and we worry as much about him as we would a brother or sister!!
Thanks folks,
Pipp.
By the way, EGAR you are inspirational - we rescued a dog ourselves in the past whos now an extremely pampered pooch with a family in Kildare!!

Schlemm

We have a dog who has had trouble with his digestive system since he was very young. Although it's not IBS, I do find that if you feed a high quality diet like Hills (that agrees with the dog, or that is formulated for dogs with gastrointestinal problems) and stick to it, it does help. Feeding the dog at the same time and place every day (ie, regular feeding habits) is also important. Of course any drugs that you have to use will help, but good feeding habits are half the battle.

Annika30

I would agree 100% with Schlemm. I had a husky a few years back with IBS he actually had to be put down in the end, he was only 1 year old.....:(

sillymoo

Steroid treatment will help with IBS as will antibiotics and anti inflams but im afraid he will prob be on them for life. His intestine is prob quite damaged so a special diet is a must. The biopsy will show for definate what you are dealing with. Hope all settles down soon