**Blood in Diarrhea**

Hello Vets! Looking for some advice for my 1 year old pitbull. She got into the garbage about five days ago and basically ate anything she could find. A day or two later she started getting diarrhea, which was no surprise, but she started to get a little better with more “solid” poops. Well, starting this morning shes back to diarrhea except now it has what looks like blood in it. Her behavior is completely normal, like literally not a single change. MAYBE a little bit more cuddly, but she’s always super cuddly so it’s hard to differentiate whether it’s due to not feeling well. I do not have money for the vet right now, as we just moved into a new apartment which costed us about $2k, with rent due next week 🤦🏻‍♀️. Any advice, tips, even words of encouragement, on what I can do to help ease her tummy. We have been doing only boiled chicken and plain white rice since the diarrhea started so I’m just not sure what to do next for her. Thank you in advance! Please go easy on me. It’s been a very, VERY rough 2023 for us so far. Picture of my girl for attention 🖤

Hello - I know you want me to go easy but curl your toes up, I'll start with the worstcase scenarios just in case you are unlucky enough to spot them.  Pointy bones / skewers / corks / chunks of plastic / string or linear foreign bodies / anything that might cause a blockage lump together as one concern.  If the intestines block with a foreign body, it can become an emergency and surgery can be the only answer.  Usually repeated vomiting / flatness / painful abdomen / loss of interest in food are typical clues - even lack of poo - but not all dogs have read the text book. They tend to be emergencies.  Another set of diseases are the bacterial ones (ate something that was off) - these can often cause self-limiting vomiting and diarrhoea, but sometimes can continue past the point of dehydration where they become emergencies.  More common in older dogs, pancreatitis can occur as an acute reaction to a fatty gorge (painful abdo, hunched dog, very quiet, vomiting).   If the bin wasn't involved, Parvovirus or the similar Heamorrhagic gasteroenteritis would be higher up the list - they can also cause diarrhoea of varying severities and in particular bloody diarrhoea (again if too much fluid is being lost / not enough staying in, fluids are needed).  Roundworms, Tapeworms (animal poo / uncooked meat / soil) and Giardia are also worth being aware of.  Blood loss can paradoxically make dogs look very pink in the first instance.  BETTER TO FOLLOW

However, dogs can and do get into the garbage surprisingly commonly and once that has happened (which admittedly might be avoided) it is often down to luck what is in there, what they get hold of.  It may be worth scanning lists of common toxins just in case anything resonates - not many people throw large amounts of chocolate in their bins I know, but there are others.  We would fully reccommend giving your vet office a call - don't worry, it happens a lot and they ought to be sympathetic.  They should triage the case and let you know at what point your dog needs to be seen.  Wishing you both all the best.

Re:  triage, if I am a vet and get a call about a vomiting dog, then a) might something be stuck b) might they have been poisened c) might they become dehydrated are the emergencies that I would be worrying most about in the first instance.   I hope that something there helps.