How to Treat Dog Colitis

Video Transcript

"The question is how to treat colitis in a dog. Well what is colitis in the first place? Colitis just means inflammation of the colon. And there could be many, many causes for this. The most probably the most common thing that we see that causes colitis is eating something inappropriate. Something spoiled or something dead outside. Or people food or something that they are not supposed to be getting. So what happens is you get inflammation of the colon, therefore, typically you are going to get diarrhea. These dogs don't feel very good sometimes you can get vomiting that goes along with that as well. Other sources of cause of colitis can be stress, food intolerance or food allergies can cause that as well. Colitis itself needs to be diagnosed by your veterinarian. They will usually do a fecal sample to rule out any parasites or anything like that. And they are going to be looking for white blood cells, red blood cells, bacterial over growth that sort of thing. Treatment usually involves using a bland food, sometimes antibiotics to reduce bacterial over growth. And also sometimes active culture supplementation or normal floral supplementation can help get these dogs with colitis under control. Now there are some dogs that have long term or chronic colitis that may be managed with fiber diets or bland diets, and some dogs just have acute colitis due to stress or eating something that they are not supposed to get. But all that can be diagnosed and treated by your veterinary clinic."