"I had the puppy sent to a vet to test for parvovirus," the pet shop girl said to me when I did a house call to vaccinate some puppies. "It was negative for parvoviral infection.  The vet could not find anything wrong with this poodle."

She continued: "I had complained of this puppy having diarrhoea on the day of sale?"  Vets are supposed to remember every animal being treated and their condition. I nodded my head. I was consulted when she was selling the puppy and I had asked: "Did you deworm the puppy?"  She said yes.

Diarrhoea is a common occurrence in puppies in pet shops and to save on veterinary expenses for the pet shop owner, I did not do a stool check as this puppy was otherwise healthy.  It seemed to me that a new pet shop is set up every week and many do close down and it is essential that the pet shop operator contained their operational cost. 

Singaporeans were not spending much on pets in this June month although there was a mention of economic recovery.  Families might have gone abroad for holidays as the low-cost airline carriers made travel so much more affordable.

The 10-week-old toy poodle puppy was eating and active. It barked from inside its cage to attract attention.  Yet, there was something wrong.  No normal puppy would squirt a watery and smelly reddish stool from its backside every few hours. The blood became more smelly every day.

This was a challenging case. How should I handle this case? The buyer had returned the puppy to the pet shop girl.  If it died, she would have to refund the monies. It was a matter of time before it would die from dehydration and bacterial infection of the intestines.  There was no vomiting and that was a good sign.

Would the puppy be sensitive to the dog food?  Generous amount of pieces of chicken from the chicken rice stall were offered in a separate dish to the puppy.  Was it allergic to chicken meat?  Was it suffering from th

lymphocytic-plasmacytic Inflammatory Bowel Disease whereby the puppy's white blood cells called lymphocytes and plasma cells invade the intestines? Or suffering from an Irritable Bowel Syndrome?  This condition occurs in hyper-excitable, stressed or overworked dogs and the cause is said to be pyschological.  The puppy was too young to consider that it was suffering from the lymphosarcoma and adenosarcoma cancers of the intestines.  It was confined indoors and would not be having a foreign body colitis as it had no access to objects like sand or grass.

The pet shop girl dewormed the puppy. The vet who tested it for parvovirus could not find anything wrong with it. What should I do now?

In such cases, I had to take the puppy back to the surgery for close observation. It was still very playful.  It still ate.  The characteristic smell of blood in its stools with blood announced its passage every now and then. The stools were quickly removed. I put some stools under the microscope to look for worm eggs.  Nothing was seen for the first two samples.  A third sample of its diarrhoea showed one thick-shelled spherical worm egg.  Hookworm eggs are oval shaped but I could be viewing it from the end view.  Just one egg.      


 

Worms that attached themselves to the puppy's intestines to suck blood would have caused inflammation and bleeding, causing colitis. The stools would then have spots of blood.  Fresh red blood if the bleeding originated from the large intestines and caecum (which is called "appendix" in human).  Dark red blood if they imbed in the small intestines using their mouth parts to hook onto intestinal tissues.  

The puppy was given the deworming medicine, antibiotics, rehydration salts and the dry dog food sold by the pet shop. It took four days to recover.    Would the diarrhoea come back again when it went home?  It could swallow the worm eggs present in its paws, cage and feed dishes and the problem would recur in 1-3 months when the eggs hatch. The worms would then attach themselves to the intestines to suck blood.

Such eggs are microscopic and could not be seen.  Fortunately it did not eat its own stools.    

As there were no further complaints from the pet shop or the owner for the next two weeks, it must have passed normal stools. 

In this case, to enhance veterinary communication with an owner I had not seen in this age of litigation and official complaints,  I enclosed a sample of its normal stools in a bag to be given to the owner to confirm that the puppy now had recovered.  A body of evidence, just like worn out car brake discks given by the car servicing workshop after replacement of new brakes and put inside the car to convince owners that they had new brake discs. 

Such worn out car brake discs could be from any other car. How was the ordinary car owner to differentiate them as he was not present to seethat new manufacturer-genuine brake discs had been replaced?

But the colour and form of the stool evidence from this puppy could be reproduced or duplicated exactly by the next defaecation and therefore a solid body of evidence that the vet had serviced the canine alimentary (digestive) system.   

The owner was instructed to feed just the particular brand of dog food and water for the next 14 days.  Certainly no more oily chicken pieces from chicken rice, a most popular dish with Singaporeans to upset the intestinal mucosal cells for the next fortnight.

ASIAHOMES.COM'S TIPS FOR A LONGER LIFE FOR YOUR PETS is a Community Education project using  narrative stories. It is sponsored by Asia USA Realty (Singapore) asiahomes.com Pte Ltd
The article"The puppy was active but it squirted bloody stools is extracted from the book "How Your Puppy Can Live Longer".   This article is published in Sin Pet magazine July 2004.  Pictures and the article are  ©Asia USA Realty (Singapore) asiahomes.com Pte Ltd.  Website:  asiahomes.com. Focus:  We find affordable homes for expats.   Update: 06 Jun 2004