Giardia in one dog. Should I test or treat my other asymptomatic dogs?

Hello, it can be challenging to rid giardiasis from a household especially when multiple dogs are affected. The best recommendation would be to treat all 3 dogs, at the same time, until you have 2 negative fecal samples. You should retest the fecals 10 days after initiating treatment for giardiasis and 10 days in-between testings. However, the most important part of this is to reduce environmental contamination, because as though you may successfully rid your dogs of giardia, they can become re-infected at any point. Treating the environment means you have to pick up their stools immediately after they defecate and you must wash the areas where they defecate with water and bleach. Most infections occur via a fecal to oral transmission. So at some point your puppy may have been exposed to giardia, then came to your house and started shedding the giardia onto your environment exposing your other dogs as well. Please wear gloves and wash your hands after cleaning as giardia can also infect humans. Best of luck and hope this helps.

Some dogs will shed giardia with no clinical signs, so it may not be worth retesting the other ones if they are normal. If any of them start having loose stool again though it may be worth testing them as they may be reinfecting each other.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. if they were using an antigen test then testing immediately after treatment can lead to false positive results. I would recommend following your veterinarians recommendations as different tests and different labs may have varying sensitivity.

Hi, I'm Dr. Johnson. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! I'm sorry to hear that Loki has giardia. Sometimes it can be frustrating to treat. I am assuming you know Loki has giardia because your Veterinarian checked a stool sample. If that is the case then your Veterinarian will prescribe the appropriate drugs to help clear the giardia infection. There are no over the counter drugs that are recommended. Definitely consult your Veterinarian if you haven't already. There are some cases where giardia can persist despite the appropriate treatment and longer courses of drugs or different medications are prescribed. Some times we need to wait for the puppies immune system to mature. At home you should be preventing Loki from re-infecting himself: immediately clean up all stool, use disinfectant cleaners, do not allow him to eat his stool, if he walks through his stool wash his feet well, do not allow his stool to contaminate his drinking water and take him outside to a designated area of the yard on a leash to do his business. Giardia is also what we call a zoonotic disease, meaning humans can contract it as well. Humans, cats and other dogs get it from ingesting fecal material or drinking fecally contaminated water. When you clean up his stool either wear gloves and/or wash your hands immediately. Do not allow children or immunosuppressed family members to handle the stool. Your cat would have to ingest Loki's stool or drink water that had been contaminated with Loki's stool. You could always have your cats stool checked to be sure. I wish you luck! I hope Loki clears the infection soon! They usually do!

I highly recommend treating both kittens at the same time. Once you start treatment, clean and change the litter box. Then 2 weeks after the medication is done have your veterinarian send the stool sample to the lab. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

If June is not currently having diarrhea, then there is likely no reason to treat her. Giardia can be an incidental finding on a fecal exam, meaning that it's present but not causing any problems. In cases like this, the pet often remains Giardia-positive on fecal exam even if you do try and treat, so it usually doesn't do much good and isn't really necessary. If June is having persistent diarrhea, then of course that's a different story. In that case, the giardia may or may not be the main problem, but we would normally want to treat for it to see if this helps the diarrhea to resolve.

Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! The risk of contracting Giardia from your dog is pretty slim, but elderly, very young, or immunocompromised individuals are at a higher risk. If Kiddo is fully vaccinated, fully treated with an anti-parasitic agent, and house trained, it should not be a concern for Kiddo to reinfect herself. You do not need to steam/bleach/etc your home continuously after treatment. I am happy to answer any other questions you may have and wish you luck with your puppy!