Coccydia

Sunday 16th September.

I am not a "techy" person and blogs are a new phenomenon to me but my assumption is, they are designed to educate, inform and amuse.

Last week I learned all about Coccidia and hopefully I can pass on a little of what I learned here.

Last Tuesday I received a phone call from Jim who had bought the puppy Neville from me the week before. He told me that Neville had been experiencing diarrhoea so he had taken him to the vets. A test on a stool specimen had revealed that he had coccidia, I had vaguely heard of this as birds of prey can harbour It but I needed to google It before I fully understood what coccidia was. My first response was to let all of my puppy people know that this had happened and to take their puppy to the vet to be tested. I then got in touch with my vet to ask for his advice about testing my dogs.

I will add a link to this page about coccidia but basically it is a protozoa that can live in the gut of dogs without ever showing symptoms, the mother can pass It on to her pups and then at times of stress such as weaning and leaving the nest the puppy will develop symptoms such as mucous in the stool, diarrhoea and blood in the stool. The advice from my vet was to bring a stool specimen from Ruby and the last remaining puppy, Posh for testing.

The next morning It was fairly straight forward obtaining a specimen from Posh and her stool looked completely normal, Ruby, however was a little challenging. Ruby is very discreet when she goes to toilet, she likes to run into the woods for privacy (she would never contemplate the garden). I had an old jam jar for my spec bottle. Every time Ruby made a dash for the woods I would call her back and bless her she came back every time and I could tell she was getting exasperated with me. Eventually we reached the meadow and ruby decided she would provide me with a sample. Once again her specimen looked completely normal. As soon as I got back from the walk I rushed off to Oneonta with my specimens. I had to wait about half an hour for the result and as I did so I contemplated the idea of treating all of my dogs, at least Jim had told had told the treatment cost about $8.

When I was called to the treatment room I was told that Both Ruby and Posh were negative which left me very confused as I really had not expected this. I then asked the vet if the fact that I had free range chickens and a couple of pigs that sometimes associated with the dogs could in anyway have been responsible and he replied most probably not. He advised that the rest of the puppies from the litter be sent stool specs for testing to the lab. I have read in the link that dead mice can harbour coccidia and I do have 3 cats that hunt during the summer and leave dead mice lying around so maybe that is a possible explanation. We all know dogs and we also know they will attempt to eat absolutely anything.

I cannot express how stressful I found the whole experience. I pride myself on my high standards of cleanliness and I worried that I would be seen as some sloppy breeder with dubious practices. I still do not properly understand how this all happened but three puppies showed symptoms of coccidia. Neville, Gerrard and Keane, the rest of the litter have had no symptoms and what makes it confusing is that Ruby was negative. I will re- submit a further specimen to be tested in the near future.

For more information on coccidia go here.

All of the dogs are looking really good right now and Ruby is quickly regaining her shape after her puppies.

I have changed their diet to Evo which I believe is what Nadia and Steve feed their dogs . (They have a sister to Lela and Beckham from this last litter.) Evo is a revolutionary new type of dog food that closely emulates a dogs natural diet ie all meat, no carbs and a little roughage. It is more expensive than Nutro and other premium brands but less food is required so I will be interested to see how they all manage on It. Since the food scare I am now easily persuaded to seek better alternative ways of feeding my dogs.