Significant anal leakage and lethargy

Question
Apologies in advance for the amount of poop references in this post. We found our year and a half old pit bull terrier as a stray approximately three months ago. She has had ongoing digestive issues. First she had the expected issues with digestion, diarrhea, and throwing up. She was prescribed antibiotics to balance out the "bad bacteria" still in her stomach from being a stray. Since then, she'll occasionally throw up after eating too quickly. That mostly stopped when we changed from a chicken-based food to a fish-based food. I've noticed that she still often throws up several hours after having beef or chicken-based treats. She's thrown up toy-fuzz twice in the past month after I couldn't get a dog toy away from her quickly enough.

We've noticed white secretion around her rear after she poops, and we were told not to worried about it. Today though, she's had secretions that left stains that were about six inches in diameter twice in three hours. Finally, she left a stain that was about 11 inches in diameter. Her poop right before and after this, and it was extremely soft. Currently she is very lethargic. While she usually follows us around and comes when called, currently she'll look at us without moving unless we call several times. Without knowing how to express it more clearly, she looks like she feels miserable. She threw up once earlier tonight, but no blood or anything suspicious.

Also, she had tapeworms a month and a half ago or so but they were cleared up after one antibiotic  dose.

We'd really appreciate any guidance!

Answer
Well firstly, antibiotics do NOT kill tapeworms. She needs medicine that you can only get from the vet to kill them. It would be called Drontal or Droncit. She should be given a dose of that.

Secondly, she may be having Mal-absorption issues. What this means is that she isn't digesting food properly, no matter what kind of food it is. The giveaway is the white liquid. This is very common in digestive problems.

She could also have colitis, or even IBD. Even dogs get these common human diseases. Irritable Bowel disorder and colitis look quite similar in their symptoms but the IBD cause painful cramping and gas.

Colitis is a digestive problem that can be controlled with diet. Most commonly used is Hill's Prescription W/D. It is a weight control diet but has a LOT of Fiber in it which makes it ideal for controlling the symptoms of colitis.

Food intolerance can also cause these digestive upsets. The way you determine these is with elimination diets. You must feed one novel diet at a time for a month to see how she does on it each one.

Novel diets are foods that you would normally not feed, such as duck and potato. Venison and sweet potato is another one. There are rabbit and other combinations as well.

In either case, your dog needs a more thorough exam and then your vet can decide which way to go- either with a diet trial of W/D or some powdered enzymes for her food, or the elimination diets.

So that is where you need to start. Once you find a food that works for her you MUST keep her on it, probably for life. You will also have to change her treats or stop giving her treats period. You can use her new food as treat food. Believe me, it works.  

So call the vet Monday morning and get her in for an exam, possibly some blood work and a new diet.

I hope that helps. Please let me know how she does, and don't forget the Drontal!