This is a long post! For practical information on how to treat a dog that’s sick with giardia, scroll down to the end and look for “Giardia advice and information”.
My dog, Pippin, is twelve. I used to love it when people asked his age because of their surprise at the answer. Until recently he was an active, healthy dog and he did not look old at all. I walked him for an hour in the mornings and about forty minutes in the afternoon.
In December there was a sewage spill in the vlei and Pippin got into the water despite my attempts to stop him. I can’t be sure that’s where it started, but it seems very likely.
He started getting diarrhoea. I ignored it at first because he likes eating rubbish and has had runny poop before, although not often. But when it didn’t clear up, I took him to the vet.
The vet prescribed the antibiotic Metronidazole. Pippin had several courses. Initially it seemed to help but each time the diarrhoea came back, like clockwork, 5 days after the last dose.
The vet got Pippin’s poop tested and we had an answer. Giardia. A single celled parasite that thrives in water contaminated by sewage. I was happy to get a diagnosis. The vet was confident that the correct medication would clear this up.
Long story short, it didn’t. Pippin went through two courses of the anti-parasitic medication Panacur and some more Metronidazole – by now I’ve lost track of how many courses of antibiotics he’s had. Each time the symptoms came back, like clockwork, 5 days after the end of the treatment. I quarantined Pippin in a clean room and blasted my house and backyard with disinfectant, threw away all his bedding and toys, in case he was reinfecting himself. Didn’t make any difference.
His symptoms got worse. Not just diarrhoea, but blood. And getting him to take the medication was stressful for everyone involved. Pippin hated being quarantined too. It was a bad time.
I made mistakes, some of which might explain why the medication didn’t work. Before the giardia diagnosis the vet recommended an anti-diarrhoea medication called Diomec. I continued giving Pippin this stuff, not realising that it contains kaolin and prevents medication from being absorbed.
I also didn’t realise that the fluid medications, Panacur and Rhonidazole, have to be shaken really, really hard because the active ingredient settles into a sort of gunk at the bottom of the bottle. I couldn’t figure out why the doses I was measuring out didn’t add up to the volume of the (opaque) container. When I did eventually figure it out, even shaking didn’t do the trick, I had to stir the damn stuff with a chopstick. The fact that it took me so long to realise this might mean he just didn’t get enough of the active ingredient.
I kept Pippin out of our backyard in case it was contaminated with the giardia cysts. Every time he needed to pee or poop I had to take him for a walk. We developed quite a bond over this. Pippin would come over and look at me meaningfully, I’d get up from whatever I was doing and take him for a toilet walk.
I grew jealous of the random dog poops that I saw lying around outside. If only Pippin would produce something so firm and brown! I also had to be extra careful to clean up his poop as I didn’t want other dogs getting infected.
To Pippin’s alarm I had to wipe his bum for him for him each time he pooped to stop infected poop from spreading onto his coat and into our home. He also got washed for the very first time in his life. He accepted this and everything else with dignity.
The vet tracked down a new type of medication, another anti parasitic drug called Ronidazole. I gave Pippin a seven-day course of this, which was fairly traumatic as it became progressively more difficult to persuade him to take the medication. It’s a fluid that I either mixed with his food, or, eventually, squirted directly into his mouth. The stuff made him feel groggy and he quickly got very good at detecting its presence.
It’s a few days after his last dose and so far he’s doing OK. I’ve decided not to go on with any treatments even if the giardia comes back. It’s too traumatic. I’m going to keep him as comfortable as possible, but not do anything that will upset him further.
UPDATE! We just got the test results back and the giardia is gone! I am so relieved. Pippin is not out of the woods yet, he has all the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome which is apparently not uncommon after a giardia infection. He’s doing much better overall, but he’s an old dog so we’ll just have to take it one day at a time.
Giardia information and advice
The symptoms of a giardia infection are diarrhoea, often yellow, often with mucus, often with blood. In the early days the diarrhoea can be intermittent. The only way to diagnose it is with a fecal sample. Don’t wait till your dog is very sick before doing this. Get a diagnosis as early as possible.
Disinfecting and preventing infection
If a dog is infected the parasite will colonise its gut and produce cysts, which are like tough, microscopic little eggs that can survive outside of water and outside of the dog. These cysts contaminate the dog’s poop.
If a dog (or a cat) sniffs and or eats poop contaminated poop or licks contaminated soil they can get infected.
The cysts survive outside for quite a while but they prefer wet, cool conditions. They’ll last for a few days on dry sand in direct sunlight, but for weeks in shaded soil.
To stop giardia from spreading, pick up poop as quickly as possible and disinfect the area thoroughly.
You can kill giardia cysts with diluted bleach, (1 cup in four liters of water), or a cleaning solution that contains Quaternary ammonia, like F10 Veterinary disinfectant. F10 works well because they have a range of products that are easy to use, for example a soap for washing your hands or your dog, a spray for soft upholstery that doesn’t need to be rinsed off. F10 is also comparatively eco-friendly as it’s biodegradable and smells OK, a sort of piney scent that fades quickly.
Disinfect everything that might be contaminated and wash the dog, especially its bum, on the last day of treatment.
There are different strains of giardia and apparently it is very unlikely, (although not impossible) for a human to get infected by the type of giardia that dogs or cats get. Humans and birds get the same type of giardia, but it’s unlikely that a dog will get giardia from eating bird poop.
What medication to use
Your vet will guide you here. Panacur seems to be the most widely successful although in my case it didn’t work. That might be because, as I described above, I made some mistakes in giving it.
The importance of probiotics
Dogs can be infected with giardia without getting sick. There seems to be some evidence that it’s not the giardia that is the problem but the “bad” bacteria in an animal’s guts. If the gut bacteria isn’t healthy, the giardia can open up the way for that bad bacteria to attack. That’s why it’s so important to establish a healthy gut by making sure that a dog is getting enough probiotics. Unfortunately the treatment, antibiotics or anti parasite medications, kill the “good” bacteria so its a catch 22.
From my experience with Pippin I doubt that treating a dog only with probiotics will help much. You have to actually kill that parasite once its taken hold but the probiotics make an enormous difference to how quickly the dog recovers. As soon as I started giving Pippin probiotics he improved remarkably.
Oh, and just giving a dog live yogurt is not enough as it doesn’t contain all the different types of bacteria needed. A good probiotic for dogs is Protexin, it contains multiple strains of bacteria. I also use Pro-Kolin and Canigest but both contain kaolin so shouldn’t be given while the dog is getting medication. Pro-Kolin and Canigest are good for helping with diarrhoea. You can give a dog human probiotics, but you need to check that it contains the right strains. Look for the following:
- Enterococcus faecium
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
- Lactobacillus casei
- Lactobacillus plantarum
- Bifidobacterium bifidum
- Bifidobacterium animalis
Pro-kolin and Canigest both contain Enterococcus faecium and Protexin has got pretty much all of them. Protexin also seems to be tasteless and easy to mix into food without the dog realising.
These are the most helpful articles I found on:
General information on giardia in dogs and how to deal with it
Cross infection of Giardia in humans, dogs, and birds
Masha du Toit 
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