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My dog has diarrhea, it started when we moved thought it was stress from the move but it has not stopped, he is losing so much weight, and today he had blood in his urine. What could be going on, he eats fine and plays.
Aloha! You're speaking to Dr. Michael SalkinHi - Multi-systemic disease - gastrointestinal system (diarrhea), urinary system (blood in the urine) and profound Weight loss - is worrisome for a host of disorders that will require diagnostics (blood/urine testing) to elucidate just what's occurring. When so many systems of our patients are affected at once we consider malignancies, immune mediated diseases and widespread infections such as tick-borne diseases. Please respond with further information - age, breed, how long he's been ill, what, if anything, has been done for him so far, where he lived prior to your move and where he lives now. Thank you!
Experience: UC Davis graduate veterinarian with 41 years of experience
He is a three year old doberman, we lived in central wisconsin, with my parents and their dogs moved a month ago to northern wisconsin and with in 2 days of the move he got diarrhea, I had changed his diet to no relief. then today he started with blood in his urine.
Thank you. It's not unusual for any of us and our pets to develop gastrointestinal upsets when we move to a new area and ingest a new water supply and foods (the "turistas" when we go to Mexico). Our pets' usual foods may be produced in a different manufacturing plant that uses different ingredients. It's unusual, however, for this kind of gastrointestinal distress to persist for more than a few days. If it has, I have to be worried that the stress of moving caused your Dobie to break with something he had already been carrying - gastrointestinal parasites, e.g. Blood in the urine in a young intact male is often seen secondary to prostatitis - usually a bacterial urinary tract infection which inevitably involves the prostate in our intact males. Alternatively, his diarrhea and blood in the urine are symptoms of the same infection - a tick borne infection such as ehrlichia or a systemic fungal infection found in the Midwest such as blastomycosis. Bleeding into the urine can also be a symptom of immune mediated disease such as immune mediated hemolytic anemia. I mention these systemic diseases because you noted "losing so much weight". Your best approach to your Dobie would be to consult a Wisconsin vet to see if there were a systemic infectious agent such as the above mentioned ones endemic to central and northern Wisconsin. There's just too much going on with him at this time to ignore. Please let me know if you're seeing any other symptoms that may help me pin down what's occurring.