Blood In Dog Stool

Food poisoning outbreaks rare, but serious

Carol Yarnold still cringes when she thinks about it — nausea, cramping, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea.

Yarnold spent two days in bed in April 2008 struggling with those symptoms after she and 12 of her employees at Dog Star Ranch contracted food poisoning following a lunch catered by a Dalton Township Subway.

“This was worse than the flu, and I thought the flu was the worst,” said Yarnold, 47, of Whitehall.

While large scale foodborne illness outbreaks are rare in Muskegon County, they do occur, a Chronicle review of health department documents shows. Typically, an outbreak is defined as two or more people, not of the same household, who become sick with similar symptoms after ingesting a common food.

Between 2006 and 2010, there were 23 potential foodborne illness outbreaks in Muskegon County, state records show. Of those, seven were confirmed, meaning lab results could identify a likely food source or pathogen that caused the outbreak or there was a statistical link between illnesses and food.

“It's like trying to put a puzzle together,” Dr. Jean Chang, epidemiologist at Public Health-Muskegon County, said of trying to solve outbreaks. “You have no two of a similar pattern.”

Foodborne illness presents a significant public health risk, experts say. It sickens an estimated 48 million people each year, resulting in 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many of those illnesses occur during large scale, foodborne illness outbreaks, some of which span dozens of states.

“People expect food to nourish them, not to harm them,” Christopher Braden, director of the CDC's Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, said in a statement.“We need to intensify efforts to decrease the number of illnesses and deaths due to foodborne diseases.

Do You Know the Causes of Blood in Dog Stool | Dog diarrhea solutions

When a dog has blood in his stool, the problem could be serious. Unless it’s a female dog and the blood is simply a physiological sign of fertility, there is always a need to consult a veterinarian. It would be, of course, a whole lot better to know the cause of blood in dog stool before taking him to the vet, so the problem can be more easily addressed.

Blood in stool, depending on its characteristic appearance and nature, is medically known as melena or hematochezia. The former refers to black and tarry stools, which may be indicative of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. This may involve structures of the esophagus and the stomach, and some parts of the small intestine. The latter, however, refers to the condition when blood in the stool is bright red, or fresh. This involves lower gastrointestinal bleeding, involving structures of the colon and the rectum.

The Absolute Best Way to Treat Dog Diarrhea

The cause of blood in dog stool can be pinpointed to one solitary factor, or attributed to various interrelated factors with bleeding as an end result. Intestinal parasitic infestation is a common cause of bleeding, and practically the most recorded. Parasites most commonly found in the intestines of dogs include whipworms, tapeworms, and roundworms, and can often be acquired when the dog eats spoiled food, digs on contaminated earth and waste matter, and the like. It is very crucial to keep the dog’s environment clean, and his food, healthy. Depending on the type of parasite in his digestive tract, the veterinarian may prescribe specific deworming agents to get rid of the infestation.

The cause of blood in dog stool could also be attributed to dietary problems. Overeating can cause bloody diarrhea, and so does a sudden change in diet. When there is a need to shift the menu, this must be done so gradually in order allow the digestive tract to adjust slowly to the new diet.

Dogs may also have allergies that are unknown to the pet owner until the animal begins to vomit or pass out bloody diarrhea. Feeding a dog spoiled food can also irritate the intestines and cause bleeding from within. Since the diet plays a major role in the development of GI upset, much care must be taken when changes are made, and when preparation of the meal is done.

Oftentimes, the cause of blood in dog stool could simply be an effect of injury in one of the structures of the digestive tract, particularly the rectum and the anus. A dog that has been feeding on cooked bones or playing with wooden twigs or anything that is sharp may eventually acquire injury in the lower digestive tract – particularly the rectum and the anus – as the object passes out in the stool. These objects that cannot be digested by the gastric and intestinal enzymes exit the body in the same form, and may cause bleeding along the way.

JAMA., The Journal of the American Medical Association

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