How we overcame gastrointestinal issues from Chemotherapy.

I don’t know how or why. But one day, Nahla decided she had a sick tummy, and it never stopped.

It started with throwing up over night one day, years ago. We’ve had times of no sickness and times of extreme chaos. Most recently, Christmas Day 2023. Nahla just took a turn downhill and for the next five weeks it was drama after drama after drama.

She had a sore gut, blood in her stool, vomiting, no solid bowel movements whatsoever and overall she was lethargic and weak with a side of spiking random fevers. Dramatic, chaotic, and always happening in the middle of the night.

Clinically speaking, the logical answer was her cancer had masticated in her bowel and was causing these issues. I didn’t believe this. It wasn’t consistent enough and every time we had a flare up, I would take a step back on diet and stabilise her until eventually she would be sick again. Over, and over, and over. Eventually she had lost so much weight, as cancer patients do, that everyone was nervous. 15.6kg is the lowest she has ever been as an adult dog and she was down from 18.5kg, keep in mind at this weight, 3 kilos is over 16% of her overall body weight – a lot of weight to loose in a few weeks.

So. Stubborn old me decided on diet elimination.

Of everything. I started Nahla on home made bone broth (I will include the recipe below), roasted chicken that I make at home, slippery elm and psyllium husk. We did well for a few days. Then I reintroduced biscuits and hot damn, did the chaos follow.

Nahla was on an extremely organic and natural biscuit tailored specifically to her breed. But the night after I reintroduced those tiny little crunchy treats, not only did the blood in the stool make an offensively fast reappearance, but her fever spiked AND suddenly she had all of these tiny little lumps and ulcers all over her entire body.

Being a Border Collie, the only way I found all these little ulcers was a really rigorous pat one night accompanied by a scream out in pain which prompted me to go on an investigation at 11pm at night. I cannot even begin to tell you how fast and far my stomach dropped when I found countless wounds over her entire body, some huge and some so infected and weeping I almost died right then and there. How in the damn hell did I miss these forming?!

I didn’t miss them.

Nahla had had an acute response to what I can only now assume is Gluten and not only had it ripped her gut apart, it had caused these sores that I don’t even know what they were called, everywhere. At first, the doctors thought it was an allergic reaction to medications, a particular antibiotic to be exact. So we stopped that antibiotic and shaved her to skin level so I could treat these sores. Given she was so fluffy, we were afraid of infection forming given it’s IMPOSSIBLE to keep a BC clean. See photo below for reference shot of how my beautiful coated cancer patient now looks.

So we tried the food process again. Pulled back to the starting point and had success for a few days, and this is where I finally figured it out. Eleven and a half years and I finally discovered she is gluten intolerant. We introduced the biscuits again. The reaction this time was absolute chaos.

It was the gut. It was the fever. It was the blood in the stool. But the skin.. Her entire body was not only covered in sores, but it was covered in what I can only describe as under skin hives and they showed up in hours. Everywhere, I mean, EVERYWHERE. I genuinely had to go and confront my best friend of 23 years and room mate to make sure I wasn’t gaslighting myself into thinking these had shown up within hours. But she hadn’t seem them either.

So back to square one. We went on into the vet.

Blood tests showed that after two doses of the Chemotherapy, Nahlas WBC count was increasing. So from here we halted Chemotherapy and went onto skin infection defence. The vet was convinced the cancer was skin born and we had but days left, but if you haven’t figured out by now, I am more stubborn than that.

I asked for some antihistamines and a few days to prove myself right and if I was wrong, we would look at palliative care instead of treatment.

I wasn’t wrong.

I am not even being over dramatic here. Within hours of the first antihistamine tablet, these hell bumps were gone. Not shrunk, gone. By the next day, her gut has stabilised. Two weeks on, taking us to right now, there have been no fevers, no blood in the stool, no skin reactions, no soreness. Nothing.

This dog is absolutely gluten intolerant, not sensitive, full bowl hive response chaos inducing intolerant.

Even the vet state “If I hadn’t seen those sores myself, I honestly would not have believed you. This is so weird.”

And this brings us to the purpose of my post. Healing the gut and stabilising the digestion system to keep her weight on so we have a fighting chance when it comes to cancer. It’s rarely the cancer itself that kills the host. It’s the side effects.

Breakfast and Dinner

Nahla weighs a petite 16 kilos as we stand right now, I would take into consideration your dogs size as you may need to beef up your doses and protein amounts.

• One table spoon of home made Bone Broth (recipe below)
• Half a teaspoon of Slippery Elm
• One teaspoon of psyllium husk
• Water to suit
• One sardine from a sardines in spring water tin
• An unmeasured heap of bone broth carrot and butternut pumpkin
• An unmeasured amount of roast chicken flesh from the Bone Broth Recipe

Follow this order of events to ensure your psyllium husk does not go lumpy, Nahla turns up her nose at the most ridiculous of circumstances, and this is one of them.

1. Put your tablespoon of gelatinous Bone Broth in the bowl
2. Mix in your slippery elm
3. Mix in your psyllium husk trying to keep it creamy texture. Add it slowly if you have never used it before and keep a dash of water nearby, this may take some practise to get right
4. I mash in the sardine with a dash of the spring water and a scoop full of carrot and pumpkin here making I guess what you would call a paste
5. Add water, more than you think, if you do have a dog on steroids and or chemotherapy you will be aware of the dehydration risks and psyllium husk will absorb worlds of water in the body so be consciously awake of increasing the water intake
6. Add in as much chicken meat as required, for Nahla I reference the bowl she uses as she is a smaller dog and is fed twice a day so I know how much to give her based off practise and her appetite and weight at the time

This is Nahlas meal twice a day. That is all she eats and her coat is growing back at a rapid rate, her weight has dramatically increased, her skin is healed and her energy levels are that of a five year old Border Collie, not an 11 year old cancer patient.

Bone Broth Recipe

Tried, tested, changed, perfected.

• Two whole raw chickens between 1.5-2kg each
• 500g of chicken necks, optional but makes a huge difference to the gelatinous consistency
• Half a butternut bumpkin
• Five or so celery sticks
• Two carrots
• 1-2 inch piece of peeled ginger root
• Quarter of a cup of Apple Cider Vinegar
• Enough water to cover all ingredients

This one takes time. I find the 12-18 window is ideal in my household as I usually put it on early afternoon and it’s done by maybe 10am the next morning.

1. Roast your chickens! Ours are cooked for 20 minutes per 500 grams and usually take about an hour to an hour and a half to cook through. Todays lot is slightly larger so an hour and a half it is!
2. Towards the end, throw in your chicken necks as well to get them cooked through. Usually about half an hour for us.
3. Once cooked and cool enough to handle, pull all of the flesh off your chicken and store it. I freeze half as it takes us about a week to go through that much chicken.
4. Keep the knuckles and all bones, knuckles are vital for the right broth consistency!
5. Cut up your carrot, celery and pumpkin into rough chunks. Don’t be fussy, it’s all being thrown into a pot with bones.
6. Pop all of it into a large pot, we don’t use a slow cooker, just a huge pot on the stove.
7. Add enough water to cover everything to the top and put in your quarter cup of ACV.
8. Bring it to the boil. Slowly. I usually have it on a medium to high setting so it isn’t a violent boil, this is important as you need to skim the imperfections off the top of the water as they arise. This is all your bubbles, all those weird little looking things that float to the top in the first 45 minutes to an hour. Use a flat table spoon and scoop them on out. Annoying and time consuming step I know, but it makes a huge difference at the end.
9. Once boiling and you’re happy that there is no more imperfections rising, turn it right down to a very gentle simmer. Yes, simmer. Otherwise this is going to take you days.
10. Leave it alone. No stirring, no moving it, no changing the temperature. The only thing I do is when I go to bed I lay a lid over the tip (not closed, just sitting there allowing steam out) just to slow down the evaporation process a bit overnight and I don’t wake up to burnt bones in the morning.
11. You want it to reduce to about one quarter of the water remaining.
12. Strain, put in a container, and allow to cool.

Note: I do pop a few pieces of ice in once it’s in its glass jar to try and drop the temperature faster. I also remove all lard. If you have a dog on steroids currently please ensure you remove the lard as steroids change the way bodies process fats and you can end up with a dog with pancreatitis. Trust me, I did it, it was not fun.

And that’s it. That is Nahlas diet. And it worked. Her blood count is still dropping without Chemotherapy. She is happy and healthy and her new coat is powering through.

So I hope sharing this helps you if you have a dog with a sensitive stomach. This has all been trail and error for me and we’ve perfected out personal process. Please see below an image of Nahla loving the idea of Sardines for dinner.

Sarah x