I usually expect diarrhea to resolve within 24 hours, if it lasts more than that I take my pooch to the vet.  Are you sure he/she is not running a temperature?  

This is a prompt for you to learn some home care techniques that can help in any situation. Also a good prompt to buy some books on holistic care for dogs.  Then you will be able to help your dog quickly move through most problems. 

I strongly recommend getting some training in understanding the wide range of
approaches to health so you can be in charge of what you choose for treatments
for your animals – given by you or by your integrative veterinarian. There are so many different ways to stimulate healing that
you never need to give up trying to treat any problem. Of course, this time I assume the diarrhea cleared up. When dogs are healthy, though, they can eat almost anything and not get any diarrhea.  From books, on-line and in classes you can
learn Reiki (which can take the “bad” out of vaccines and any needed
drugs, or even make food healthier), massage, HTA (healing touch for animals), TTouch, acupressure, flower
essence therapy, all of which are 100% safe to use for any problems. There are
many more approaches you can do to help heal your animals with some training
since they need to be used more carefully – homeopathy, herbal medicine,
Chinese herbs, aromatherapy. In addition to classes there are many very good
list serves filled with people experienced with not vaccinating and feeding raw
meat diets. Classes are found through your health food store, by phone or
on-line. As with human health approaches, there are many different opinions, so
you need to experiment and see what makes your animals more or less healthy. 

I also recommend finding an integrative veterinarian with whom to work, and I know there are some good ones in Montreal. This
is a person trained in many different approaches, including using conventional
drugs only when absolutely needed. Working with one can increase the chance
that your cherished companion can live a long and healthy life after recovering
from this current problem. There are good ones and great ones, and a few
homeopathic veterinarians will consult by phone or email. You can go to the web
sites for each type of holistic practice and use their referral list to find
one near to you. Many practitioners are members of only one or two of the
organizations, so you do need to go to every site to find who is near you:
1. Wide range of other treatments: http://www.AHVMA.org, American Holistic Veterinary
Medical Association and http://www.civtedu.org.   
2. Homeopathic veterinarians (these can often help you by phone if no other
holistic practitioners are nearby that you like): http://www.theAVH.org and
http://www.DrPitcairn.com.
3. Chiropractor – http://www.animalchiropractic.org
4. TCVM (Acupuncture and Chinese medicine): http://www.IVAS.org,
http://www.avaa.org & http://www.TCVM.com

5. Herbal
– http://www.VBMA.org

6. Postural rehabilitation – dogs and horses – http://www.posturalrehabvets.com/Postural_Rehabilitation/Find_a_Practitioner.html

Hi Zack,

In my experience having rescued many kittens around Toby’s age and younger I’d guess that it’s an eye infection. It’s pretty common in kittens that age (especially if Toby is a rescue) and may actually be a symptom of something else such as a respiratory infection. 

Young kittens with immune systems that are still developing are more susceptible to infections than older/adult cats.

The great news is that if it is an eye infection, a trip to the vet for an exam and antibiotics will clear it up in no time. If it’s something other than an eye infection your vet will be able to diagnose and treat that as well. Kittens are incredibly resilient!

Sounds like you’ve caught it early and will have Toby squint free before you know it!

Adam

Thank you both for your answers. Answering your questions – we have two Bernese Mountain Dog puppies (8 months) and they have had recurrent stomach problems. After treating for parasites and changing foodwhen they were younger, they seemed to have settled down. They are eating Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Chicken and Sweet Potato. Once they switched to that, the diarrhea and soft stools stopped, however, the gas continued but sporadically. I was also giving them VetriScience Probiotic chews, but stopped that when we were trying to figure out what was causing the stomach issues. They ate nothing but dog food. As I stated earlier, when they switched to the Natural Balance, that helped quite a bit, but the gas continued. In the last week, the gas got really bad and was occurring throughout the day. I started them back on the probiotics with no change. Last night, after they ate, one had soft stool and the other had diarrhea. I took samples in to JVC because there were what appeared to be little worms in the soft stool.

Any suggestions/recommendations for food would be great. Things we have tried – Purina Puppy (what the breeder fed them), Iams Premium Protection Puppy (seemed to be ok, but I couldn’t find it in anything but a 12 lb. bag and with two large puppies it was not practical), Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Lamb and Rice (gave them diarrhea, thought it might be the lamb), Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Chicken and Sweet Potato (best so far, but still gassy).

Thanks for all your advice – I appreciate it.

Thanks, Krista. They tested positive for giardia. How long do you recommend between the three fecals? I’ll be bringing the first sample in for re-testing in about 2 weeks. Three tests every 2 weeks or longer in between? They are feeling and smelling better 🙂
Elizabeth