You will probably have seen my posts about my pup with diarrhoea. I had a call from the vets today and they have found Giardia in his stool sample, despite him being wormed days before. My vet has given me a different wormer for 3 days (wormazole). Im relieved in a way as I thought he had a food intolerance. We have to do another faecal sample next week. Im so glad I went back to the vets now and found my nice lady vet!

Good news that you know what it is and are able to treat it.

What wormer were you using before?

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just enough to bring you down

That's good and it should be easy to treat.
I suppose you will be feeding something other than Chappie now

Before we used panacur in liquid form. It came from his previous home. The wormazole is powdered and we put it in his food so we are sure he gets the whole thing.

We will continue with Chappie for a bit longer, but I am giving him small pieces of wafcol salmon and potato and its tolerated. It will be a very very gradual change. I prefer the idea of a dry food if he can tolerate it as I have a baby and a toddler and could do without the mess of wet food. He seems to like the crunchiness of dried food too.

Treatments for Giardias in dogs
Drug Name Trade Name Dose Rate Duration of
Treatment
Metronidazole Flagyl 25-30 mg/kg bid** 7 days
Furazolidone Neftin 4 mg/kg bid* 10 days
Tinadazole - 44 mg/kg once daily 7 days
Fenbendazole Panacur *** 50 mg/kg once daily 3 days
Albendazole Valbazen 25 mg/kg bid 2 days

I thought Panacur was a treatment for Gardia

It must be relief to have found a cause at last. Hope the treatment works! Remember the digestive system will take a few days to settle down, so no changes in diet for the time being.

It is indeed, but the usual worming protocol won't cure it - it needs a longer treatment.

Metronidazole (Flagyl) is also a commonly used treatment but I read recently it's been found to be less effective than Fenbendazole (panacur) as it has some side-effects.

I was unfortunate enough to have a the mother of a litter of kittens go down with Giardia about 20-odd years ago just before most vets knew what it was. I spent hundreds on treatment at the time until the kittens also went down with it & I got a second opinion - Flagyl sorted them out within a few days.

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Wormazole is fenbendazole, which is same as panacur. I think what the vet was saying was we had the liquid and had to squirt it down his throat from a syringe and of course there was a struggle etc. She thought by mixing the powder with a small portion of wet food it was easier to ensure the full dose has gone down. Of course the wormer has made him slightly loose again and he is scooting his bum. I wont be making any more changes to his diet, its Chappie Chappie Chappie (like Spam, Spam, Spam!). He was incredibly lively yesterday evening though, I thought the wormer had sent him hyper.

I keep tropical fish. Giardia can be present in their water and I recently had a few fish deaths and treated them for bacterial infection with fish zole (metronidazole). I was in the habit of watering my plants (garden and indoor) with the left over aquarium water and recently I had more than usual as I sold two tanks. Im starting to think that the giardia could have come from the water from the fish tanks. As I understand its a protozoa found in stagnant water. (Yuk).

Washing the garden with bleach isnt really an option, but I can sluice the pathways. Obviously I clean up all faeces that Hedley does. I understand it can survive the cold and only drying out is likely to kill it. From what Ive read in humans, yes you can get it but its not generally considered serious enough to treat.

This has been a useful source of information and I have posted it for future reference:

GIARDIASIS: DIAGNOSIS, TREATMENT, AND PREVENTION