warning! bloat in dogs

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat May 02, 09 1:54 pm

Just a quick warning to anyone that has a deep chested dog

learn everything about bloat and watch out for the signs

Our Rottweiler had it Sunday night at 11.30pm, bloat is only kinda serious, becomes a race to the vet IF the stomach twists which hers did, the full 360*

You have less than 45 minutes to get the dog to the vet, which we did.

Tube down the throat first (not an easy task with a Rottweiler) then x rays to see if the stomach has twisted, if it had like ours then it's either put to sleep there and then or operate to untwist the stomach.

30% die on the table, 40% die in the first week due to organs dying due to blood supply being cut of (stomach twists and closes off a huge amount of blood vessels) the rest survive.

We spent 3 days sleeping on the floor with her and feeding here a tablespoon every hour, she has to have this amount of food for the next 2 weeks at least as the vet has stitched her stomach to a rib to stop it rotating again.

Yeah I know its not cars and it probably won't be any interest to most BUT if you have a deep chested dog read as much as possible so you can recognise the signs as it is horrific and you haven't got much time at all, I wouldn't Bananarama! on my worst enemy never mind my best buddy

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Sat May 02, 09 3:04 pm

Never heard of it, but will read up - thanks Neil.
Our greyhound has a chest as deep as they come so need to be aware. Sounds like you had a lucky break in getting there so fast. Well done...

How did you know what it was ? What alerted you to seriousness ?

TYREMAN · Post by **TYREMAN** » Sat May 02, 09 5:59 pm

Heard of it

Glad she has survived

good luck with Her recovery.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat May 02, 09 7:56 pm

youch thanks for the post. Is there anything that causes it? / helps prevent it? And what were her symptoms?

newport100 · Post by **newport100** » Sat May 02, 09 8:24 pm

Was warned of this when we bought our Lab
The advice was always to leave at least an hour between feeding the dog then walking it

Full on boisterous play or running on a full stomach can lead to the stomach twisting and causing bloat- VERY serious!

Hope your pooch makes a full recovery Wil!

Jon · Post by **Jon** » Sat May 02, 09 11:54 pm

some good friends of mine lost their bordeaux mastiff through this

happened to it several times...

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun May 03, 09 9:56 am

Our dog has had it once before but her stomach didn't twist, that time it was just a case of a night at the vet so they could watch her. Also a good friend of mine breeds Newfoundlands and one of his dogs died of it so had good input from him

After that we read as much as we could which probably meant we knew enough to get her to the vet damn quick.

Vets only know how to treat the dog not really what causes it and there's a lot of opinions on the web, sifting through the BS and fact is hard.

As already said charging around like a tank after meals is a no no, difficult with our dog, calm and gentle and Bess do not ever crop up in the same sentence

There's a lot of sites that say elevate the food bowl, then if you look further recent advise is not to, another piece of advice is a heavy chain in the food bowl so the dog has to eat around it which slows them down.

I found one interesting piece linking it to the rise of commercial dog food and a Potassium deficiency, HERE http://www.weimaraner-scotland.com/GenInt/Bloat.htm

More info here http://www.globalspan.net/bloat.htm

I wouldn't like to say what causes it as even the vets aren't sure all I will say is watch out for it if your dog is a breed that is susceptible to it, the heavier the dog and the deeper the chest increases the likelihood of it happening

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat May 16, 09 5:13 pm

3 weeks this Sunday, last stitch out this morning, bugger to heal over the breast bone

Bess is now back to 100%

Got the full thumbs up from the very nice vet Katherine that spent the whole of sunday night/monday morning doing the op

Dave-R · Post by **Dave-R** » Sat May 16, 09 5:21 pm

Thats good news.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat May 16, 09 5:43 pm

Dave.. you have no idea how good that news was

or thinking about it you probably do,

I actually hate the word Dog, because it never goes anywhere near describing a Rottweiller or i'm sure most canine buddies

Or the word Dog has been taken out of context and is now used sometimes for a different meaning

shoot me now if i'm talking Bananarama!

Dave-R · Post by **Dave-R** » Sat May 16, 09 5:45 pm

Bang.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat May 16, 09 5:59 pm

fair comment

AllKiller · Post by **AllKiller** » Sat May 16, 09 6:50 pm

Jon wrote:some good friends of mine lost their bordeaux mastiff through this
happened to it several times...

So did my mate Terry in the Executioners, his Dog de Bordeaux died due to this ...found him in the garden dead just after he let him out in the morning

very sad

Elevating the food bowl is supposed to reall y help prevent this and trapping air which contributes to this to

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat May 16, 09 7:28 pm

glad to hear it will sweet looking dog

charger01 · Post by **charger01** » Sat May 16, 09 7:46 pm

Same thing happened to one of our German Pointers last year. Sadly we lost her