Impossible to stabilize!

[Chance]

You don't use a completer with your diet?

I just wanted to say that it can take a long time to get things right. Five years since diagnosis for Montgomery and we're finally there. He used to do that, too, pass food that was completely undigested. Even his kitten formula. Went in KMR, came out cottage cheese. When he was weaned, we changed foods until we found something that sort of worked. He's thriving now. Have you considered a home-made, cooked, bland diet?

I am not sure what you mean by a "completer"?

I've been making my dog food for so long, I just approximate my ratios between meat/bone/organ and tiny bit of veggies. I add ground kelp for trace minerals and iodine that's hard to find in meat alone. Vitamin E and D. And taurine.

As a general rule, I don't want to feed cooked. But yes, there are times that raw is less ideal. This is one of them. I did start a more bland (lower fat - for now) diet. But I do fully intend to go back to our regular raw diet once he's more stable. If I need to tweak things after, I will do that. (I always thought it was a lot of work making a batch of raw food. I have learned that adding the step of cooking makes it that much more work!!) He's worth it!

It took years for you to get everything stable? Ouch! I am a basket case with only a few bad weeks!! But the stress of dealing with an incompetent vet, trying to find a new one - when most aren't taking new clients - did compound things. (It is possible I will be responsible for starting a zombie apocalypse )

[Montgomery]

A completer helps to balance the diet out, so that they get all the vitamins and minerals they need.
It took a long time to get to where he is. Took four years to get him diagnosed in the first place, and he went up and down over those four years. It was a lot of trial and error, but so, so worth it. If I'd found this group sooner, we might have gotten ahead of things faster. You're in an awesome place.

[Chance]

A completer helps to balance the diet out, so that they get all the vitamins and minerals they need.
It took a long time to get to where he is. Took four years to get him diagnosed in the first place, and he went up and down over those four years. It was a lot of trial and error, but so, so worth it. If I'd found this group sooner, we might have gotten ahead of things faster. You're in an awesome place.

Ah yes. The age old problem of the vets fluffing you off, or testing absolutely everything else possible first! Would be even harder for a cat...most vets would not think EPI in a cat.

Now that I finally have access to antibiotics, I think we'll get there again. Slowly but surely.

Since I have always fed a wide range of different meats, etc I wasn't too concerned about adding extra vitamins; other than the ones mentioned. But right now, while fighting this issue, I am cooking. So right now, it's not balanced. If I stay on this for long, I will certainly need to look for something. (No idea how long I need to stay with this)!

[Montgomery]

He wasn't tested for a lot of things, really. Initially, it was assumed he had a pretty heavy parasite load. I have his half-sister-cousin-aunt and half-brother-cousin-uncle, and they both had disgusting diarrhea when we got them, too, except they were older. Sylvia Rose was four weeks old and Thobias was about five weeks old. Roundworms and coccidia, the pair of them. Montgomery was only five days old, with no mum. One of our older cats, Minnie May Hopkins, who wasn't related to them, had been a very sick kitten, too, so we initially undaunted by Montgomery's dyspepsia. We'd gone through it with May, right? Nope...It's been a roller coaster.
I still say, the best piece of advice I was ever given was to change one thing at a time and one thing only, and give it enough time to work or not before you do anything else, and write everything down. I still have Montgomery's diary somewhere. What went in and when, what came out and when. The word "bath" comes up a lot.

[Chance]

. The word "bath" comes up a lot.

I don't mean to laugh, but I get it. Especially for a cat!! I had to bathe my cat once. It's a miracle I didn't need a blood transfusion after!

I recently started a diary for Chance. "Cleaned bum" is widely used! The one and only advantage of having a short hair, large dog vs a cat with EPI!

[Montgomery]

Well, fortunately and unfortunately, he'd never known life without baths, so he thought it was pretty normal. I wouldn't want to try it now, though.
Hello Bello wipes are super cheap on Amazon, FYI, if you're going through a lot of them. They're safe and they work very well. Flannel-backed table cloths from the dollar store make excellent bed covers, too, and you can wash them a few times (by hand) before you have to get new ones.
I've always been glad he's little, because I can't begin to imagine the equivilant volume of diarrhea coming out of a large dog. Until he was diagnosed and began treatment, he was only a little over four pounds. Now he's pushing nine pounds. He's always been a good climber, though, so sometimes I did find myself cleaning up some pretty wierd messes. I guess with a dog, you don't have to worry about cleaning diarrhea off the top of the curtains.