Initial Giardia Diagnosis & Return of Symptoms

Please forgive me for the long message and not taking the time to search the database for an existing cure, but I've had a LONG day. Started out at 5:45 a.m. going to work and ended up in the ER, went back to work, had errands to run after work. I come home to find out my 13 year old Sheltie, Sandy, who was diagnosed 4 weeks ago with Giardia (and treated - we thought successfully) has been having diahrreal accidents in the house again. I know how contagious it is. We realize that her age is a determinate factor in her immune response. We've been giving her 2 drops of Black-Walnut tincture in 16 oz. of bottled Nestle water. We have a well and she won't drink from the tap. We feed her Purina One for Mature Dogs with Yogurt, but I'm suspecting there are no active cultures in this food.

I don't want to take her back to the vet because they tried to encourage us to spend every cent we have and didn't offer any alternative/holistic treatments. They gave us pepcid and an Antibiotic to kill the giardia. She was "ok" for a couple weeks and now we're having accidents again. At least this time around she's peppy and isn't vomitting.

What I am hoping to recieve are suggestions that will work given the facts above.

While walking our dogs, Sandy and Simba, in our woods this evening I realized Sandy probably could benefit from some probiotics. I had a bottle of "Rexall Probiotics" caplets that were at least 6 months old and unused. I tried to get her to take them out of the bottle because I had no meat to wrap them up in. I tried to get her to take them by example/jealousy - by getting our other Sheltie, Simba (1 yr. old) to eat them. He'll eat ANYTHING - organic, food or fiber - and still have normal BM's. Well, he ate 2 no problem. He poops normally already, so, I'm sure we need to watch him and get him outside every couple of hours. Sandy wasn't interested, so, I had to resort to inserting the caplets in cheese stix. I cut the caplets up into 4ths and managed to get her to get down about 2.5 capsule shaped tablets in the cheese.

Do you think I'm on the right track? Should I add/subtract anything? Do anything differently? I want to try to handle this holistically.

We have food grade 35% hydrogen peroxide. Would that help? If so, how/when do I add this to our current regimen of the Black-Walnut tincture and the probiotics?

Are there special probiotics for dogs? Should I not be giving Sandy probiotics that were meant for me?

Sandy's my special sweet baby girl. I wish I could post pictures of her here. I know our time left together isn't long. We've been through two lifetimes together. She has that 6th sense with me and knows when I'm hurting inside and need her. She can spell forward and backward. She reads your emotions. She knows what "the pack" is going to do next with just one subtle look from me. She's extremely intuitive. I don't want to see her feel sick or suffer this indignity. I've never had kids, but she's been with me since I was 28 and I'm now 41. SHE IS my child.

I would appreciate our kind and constructive suggestions. I am trying to do the best I can for my sweet baby and if you have anything negative or harsh to say, then please don't reply. I only want positive help and suggestions. Thank you. Tweet