Using throwaway because of personal details I'm including here. I know this is long, so thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to read all this
We adopted our girl, Lily, in September from a shelter in Maryland (we live in NYC). We got lucky because we found out a litter of these pups had recently been repossessed from a backyard breeder and we would be able to bring her home immediately if we went down to get her. I don't know if this will be relevant, but just in case it is I'll mention: Lily was spayed at 3 months
This is obviously very young, and not something we would have chosen if we had the choice, but it was a rule at this shelter (and a law in Maryland) that all dogs must be neutered/spayed before being adopted
For the first few weeks Lily's stool was fine. Very normal, stiff, uninteresting. However, after about a month and a half she started having diarrhea. We found out this was because of giardia and figured everything would go back to normal after we give her her meds.
We finish her meds, retest, giardia free. A few weeks later, diarrhea again. Worried somehow that she got infected again we tested the stool we were able to collect, and it was negative. No giardia. Something else is causing diarrhea
We begin to gave her Hills Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome Kibble on the vet's orders. It worked, but as soon as we transition back to normal kibble, diarrhea again.
We try again, more gastrointestinal kibble, it works again but when we go back, diarrhea.
Keep in mind every time we switch Lily's food back and forth, we're not doing it abruptly. Each time we take about a week to switch her on or off her new food. At this point she's about 5 months old.
We try again with the gastrointestinal kibble, but this time it has no effect. We test her again for giardia to make sure, but no. Negative. She's having diarrhea on the Gastrointestinal Biome kibble.
We tell the vet and they're shocked, it's never not worked for a dog before so they prescribe Royal Canin Gastrointestinal. Doesn't work.
We figure maybe she's allergic to chicken since that seems to be a common allergy for BMDs and its a common ingredient in these foods. We try instead Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Stomach Salmon & Rice formula for puppies. Doesn't work.
At this point she's had almost continuous diarrhea for about 3 months. When I say diarrhea it's often just very soft, wet, sometimes mucusy stool. Other times it's pure liquid that she urgently wakes us up in the night for. Most of the time it's not urgent, but even if it's urgent midnight diarrhea 20-30% of the time, that's a lot of waking up in the middle of the night for us.
Her behavior otherwise is totally normal. Shes playful, happy, energetic. Just like any other puppy. We've gone to the vet multiple times and they have no idea what's going on. They say diarrhea is common in puppies and even the mucus isn't a big deal. They do admit however that Lily does seem to have an especially sensitive stomach for whatever reason, but they're unable to recommend anything to us other than these kibbles that are sensitive stomach kibbles/gastrointestinal biome kibbles or whatever.
My father is a doctor, so out of desperation I ask for his advice. He says to me that chicken and rice works hell in humans to address diarrhea, and he used it himself for our dog growing up, so I should try that. Sure.
It worked! Lily finally is having still normal poops for the first time since she was a puppy. This goes on for a few weeks before my girlfriend and I realize that although her poops are stiff, she's probably not getting all the nutrients she needs from just chicken and rice. We try again to transition her to the kibble she had as a puppy, before she started having diarrhea. However, this didn't work, and she quickly got diarrhea again.
We spoke to a breeder, she also recommended chicken and rice, but said we should include peas and carrots in it, add some salmon, she likes using Fromm foods pate. Maybe add a raw egg once a week or so. She also recommends a probiotic.
We make all these changes except the probiotic at first and they work! Lily is doing great. No urgent poops, no diarrhea or soft stool. Normal still stool just like we wanted. At this point shes about 8 months old.
We try adding Berner's Perfect Poop as a priobiotic since we've seen that recommended quite a bit to others, but she immediately gets diarrhea. "That's odd" we think to ourselves, and stop giving it to her after 2 days. Poop goes back to normal
About a week or so later we try again. Diarrhea. So we stop the Perfect Poop all together. We feed her chicken, rice, carrots, peas, and Fromm Salmon Pate. This works for about a month and a half.
2 weeks ago things were going so well I tried again to add the Perfect Poop, but immediately she had diarrhea again. I stopped only after one day, but the diarrhea continued. I started taking things out of her food, no more pate, then no carrots or peas. My goal was to just take everything out and get her back to what we know works: just chicken and rice.
It's been two weeks now and shes still having diarrhea. I've even been adding Stool-Fix to stiffen up her poop since that's worked for us before, but it's had no effect. We submitted a stool sample and it's still not giardia. She's been waking us up in the middle of the night and been having urgent poops at irregular points in the day. I should also mention that at this point Lily is 10.5 months old
We've also realized we have a scaling problem. Even if we only fed her only chicken and rice for the rest of her life, that's a lot of rice to make and chicken to boil, and makes this extremely difficult when we need someone to watch her if we go away, or if we wanna bring her with us on a week/weekend trip anywhere.
So here's my question: has anyone else ever had an experience similar to this before? A puppy with an extremely sensitive stomach? Does anyone have an recommendations on prepackaged food we can give her? Kibble doesn't seem to work and we can't feed her just chicken and rice forever. I've read a lot of posts in the sub and tried things I didn't even mention here, but anything would be much appreciated
If you read all of that, thank you for bearing with me. We're desperate to find a solution.
TL;DR every kibble gives dog diarrhea. Only thing that doesnt is chicken and rice. Looking for an alternative to feed her that doesn't include us boiling chicken and making rice all the time, while also still not causing her to have diarrhea.