I'm the last person to get on a soapbox and preach for a cause, but I'm an avid dog person and want to share an experience my wife & I recently had.

Our dog, Jack, had a bout with bloat last week. Canine Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus (Bloat) is a very serious, life threatening condition that affects large breed dogs. If you have a large breed dog and don't know what bloat is, please take a moment and learn about it.

Bloat in Dogs

I had heard about bloat, where the stomach twists, over the years, but never thought it would happen to us. Well it did. I also thought if a dog developed bloat it would be fatal. Well for us, it wasn't. A dog can die within 4hrs of the onset of GDV, so recognition of symptoms early is key. Approximately 1 in 3 dogs that make it to a vet in time to be diagnosed with bloat, die.
Our Jack is still recovering from the surgery and 4 day hospital stay, but he is home and the doctors expect him to make a full recovery. Our fingers are crossed.

As with children, hug your pets everyday.
Thanks for taking the time.

gw

 

Thanks for the link Gail. Max has been eating out of an elevated food bowl for a couple of years, may have to re-think that.

Jack's had some lousy luck, hate to hear this. He's a good dude.

 

Thanks for the reminder. And I hope Jack pulls through.

Steve, this confused me, because I believed that an elevated food bowl helped prevent bloat. Now this info directly reverses that. We don't use one anyway. Maybe further research is in order.

Edit: a quick google browse shows that this is a hot topic of debate, with no clear answer.

 

Yes Bill, no clear answer, no clear reason for it in the first place.
Seems like a design flaw in big dogs. Bloat, I mean.

Jack is definitely our million dollar dog.

 

The really scary thing is that the symptoms are so general, that a dog could be suffering from almost anything. And I am one who generally will monitor digestion issues in our dog for a while before running to the vet. Usually he's just eaten something he scrounged up, usually grass or a stick, and a barf or two and he will be fine. If I ran him to the vet every time, I would go broke fast.

 

I'm telling you man, I'm the same way. But Jack was acting different this time. Non stop drooling. He would not sit still. He was trying to vomit but nothing came out. His chest cavity was hard, solid.
Honestly, Maria just kept saying; wadda ya think? wadda ya think? should we take him in? should we take him in? It was 8PM. The only E-Vet we trust is in Modesto, 40 miles away. I really only took him so Maria would stop saying; wadda ya think? Boy, I'm glad we did.

 

I'm glad you did, too. If there is a silver lining here, it is that his symptoms were severe enough that you couldn't wait around.

 

How's Molly & Ginger doing Gail?

 

Ginger is getting up there. She can't see. Can't hear. Her days are numbered. But she's almost 15. For a shelter dog, it sure beats the gas chamber.
Molly is still chewing up everything she can get her teeth on. I shouldn't be telling you this, but Maria has a temporary retainer for a couple of front teeth that she had surgery on awhile back. After returing from the vet the other night we were so exhausted she just placed it on the night stand before retiring to bed, instead of storing it properly. Well the next morning I caught Molly chewing on something...yep momma's retainer. Broke that sucker in half. Momma had to go to work sans 2 front teeth. A bit awkward, to say the least.
I was able to engineer it to work for her over the weekend, and I think she went in this AM to her dentist to get a new one until her bridge is finished.
If Maria finds out I'm sharing some of her personal info on the internet we're all dead, so shhhh!

 

That secret's safe...probably

Molly's what, going on 3 years?

 

Just turned 2 on 31DEC

 

Well, she shouldn't be a chew monster much longer then. Not more than a couple more years anyway