Our 7.5 month-old has inflammatory bowel syndrome and is on prednisone.

[Fainlysmom]

Fainly has been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel syndrome by a specialist in Denver who has been very helpful. He has had loose stools and diarrhea since we got him on March 26. The severity varies, and he has been on four medicines at times. Now he is only on 5 mg of prednisone daily, and a probiotic.

The vets who have seen him say he is bright and seems normal, and that's often true, but he refuses to go on walks; just lies down and won't go. He is not afraid of the leash and not afraid of the neighborhood; he just doesn't have an interest in moving it seems. He also only responds to our calling him to us when he wants to, although he follows us around the house and is almost always near one of us. He has great eye contact. The doc has said the prednisone can make him tired. He pants almost all the time even though it's getting cooler here in Colorado. What to do? We can't give him special treats that might motivate him more because we don't want to vary his diet; he's on a special diet.

He's an oversized Sheltie, which is what I wanted; he is 18 inches tall and weighs 31 pounds. His rear feet splay outward, and we only recently found out that may not be normal, but I'll post about that separately. I have to figure out how to post pictures of that.

Thanks very much for any help or advice you can offer.

 

[Piper's mom]

Is he on any canned food? Aside from using the kibble as a treat you could dehydrate a canned food and use that as a treat. Is he going to be weaned off the prednisone? Long term use of prednisone isn’t a good idea especially with such a young puppy. You should check out Natures Farmacy...I know Ann had quite a bit of success with one of her dogs and their help. You could also consider a raw or cooked diet.

 

[Fainlysmom]

Is he on any canned food? Aside from using the kibble as a treat you could dehydrate a canned food and use that as a treat. Is he going to be weaned off the prednisone? Long term use of prednisone isn’t a good idea especially with such a young puppy. You should check out Natures Farmacy...I know Ann had quite a bit of success with one of her dogs and their help. You could also consider a raw or cooked diet.

Yes, the GI specialist hopes to reduce his dose and gradually taper it off. It's not clear if that is going to be possible, though. He's on Hill's i/d, which comes in canned also. Yes, that seems like a good idea, that should seem different to him and be a good special treat for when he really needs to do what we ask. Thank you!

 

[trini]

Sometimes IBS and IBD in a dog can be a reaction to a protein in their diet. Our Miley has IBD and was put on a strict hydrolized protein diet. Since going on that diet she has not had a single flare up of her IBD, whereas before that even with careful selection of what she was fed she was typically in the hospital 2-3 times a year with serious flare ups. She is on preds for life, but on what is called "alternate day therapy" so one day on and one day off. This has been shown to limit to some degree the long term negative side effects of the preds although if Fainly can in time be weaned off the preds entirely that is best.
Trini

 

[Sharon7]

Gosh I'm sorry to hear about Fainly. He's so young to have a serious issue, poor guy. you've gotten some good advice above. I hope our member Caro weighs in at some point, she has dealt with this in two dogs, long term and likely has good tips for you. i dealt with this in our kitty, around age 8 he became very ill and it took a while to figure out what was wrong.... turns out chicken gives him IBS. So since we switched to fish based foods for him he never had another issue. Hope your pup can be weaned off the Pred - it may also be making him feel weird - the couple times I've taken it (short-term) it made me a bit crazy.

 

[Caro]

I am so sorry, it must be devastating to have a dog so young diagnosed with an auto-immune disease. I have a friend with a young Sheltie who also has IBD (PLE) and he has been on medication for a while. Do you know what type Fainly has?

I have a Sheltie who is now 14yrs old who has IBD (Lymphoplasmacytic/Eosinophilic), and I lost another one a couple of years ago to IBD. I do wonder if Shelties are more prone to stomach issues generally. Tully is back on pred, but we are trialling different chemo drugs to take instead of the Pred, she is also sensitive to every protein so it makes things hard.

There is a great IBD group on Facebook, which is science based, that you may want to join. It's called "Dogs with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Canine Chronic Enteropathy)" Make sure you join the one with the last bit - I joined a few dog IBD groups to start with and dropped them all because they were snarky or advocated some crazy things. There's a lot of files and research worth reading, and actually I'm just going to post their today to work out what other meds Tully could try.