Bloat ..how to detect and what to do

[daztay]

Bloat
If you dog gets bloat you have about 8 hours before they die a painfull death

My last dog got bloat the first time I detected it very early the next time I was asleep and he was a mess when I found him ..still alive, freezing and still standing up as to painfull to lie down. Got him to the vet they operated but he died of a heart attack 8 hours after surgery. Bloat really stresses the heart.

A couple off the first page of google for bloat
bloat
bloat
bloat

There are more better descriptions of bloat on the net so I wont go in to it but give some tips that saved my dog the first time.


The first time he got bloat he started to act strange, not hang round me like usual. He would go and hide whilst he start to try and throw up. This is the start. What has happened is stomach has twisted blocking in and out. The gases in his stomach cant escape and starts to blow him up like a balloon.

As he tries to throw up he sucks more air into his stomach and worstens the problem. As this effect cascades the his blood supply to stomach also starts to get cut off. The effect on the heart is big. From the first time I heard him try and throw up till his stomach was tight like a balloon was about 1 hour. When I first heard him throw up I noticed there was nothing for the effort, at this point I was sus and watched him carefully, within 40 minutes it was no doubt that he had bloat and rang the 24 clinic and he was tubed with in a hour of the first throw up. Tubed means they shove a tube down his throat to try and get the gas out. This worked I left the vet about 3 hours later.

Know your dog. Is it proned to Bloat?
When they start to act strangely and throw up nothing. PANIC time.
Know where you can take him and be prepared to pay, else its the needle.
DONT exercise after meals.

If your dog is proned to bloat there is surgical procedure that sows the stomach down so it cant twist any more (not 100% though). About $2200, but they do this when they do surgery to save the dog.
The question is do you wait for the first time before you act?

I miss my dogs and thought I post a warning about Bloat ..its a quick killer.

Edit
Heres a picture of him

[Annihilator69]

Yeah, my dog can get bloat.
There is a bit of info on it here

http://www.akitalove.com/feeding.html

[ChinoPD]

mine did get bloat, but stomach sorted itself out on the way to the vet, so lucky. he couldn't sit/lay down without whimpering and stomach felt real tight.

[Bass]

Damn that sounds terrible, thanks for the heads up mate i'd never heard of bloat.

[slicerdicer]

NOTE! a emergency vet from cornell was my last vet in Washington. She is a expert in canine bloat "GDV" there is no one cause for bloat there are things they think. She has seen bloat in any kind of dog no matter the size. She has seen dogs bloat on every diet excersize or not there is no known reason for bloat. Do not take anything that might prevent bloat that is said in terms of diet, exersize, dish position etc.

I will pull some more information from Purdue and Cornell later for you guys. Deep chested breeds are most likely to get it though.

There is only one real solution below to prevent it.

You can always do measures to prevent it. I am going to have a Laparoscopic Gastropexy done on my Giant Schnauzer. The deal with that is they will still "bloat" but the stomach will not rotate. I have a quote from the vet it is about 500$ in the USA. However when you consider that my doberman bloated and the stomach did flip "she survived the ordeal.. However that was 1200$ I consider the preventitive measures to be far better. I would urge any deep chested breed owner to do the same.

There is actually a few Gastropexy procedures. The Laparoscopic gastropexy is the best option in terms of recovery time. This is what I will have done. However if you cannot find a vet capable you can go for the prophylactic gastropexy. This is by far more recovery time given the incision needed. Image here of incision it gives you a idea of how much they need to cut to get in there and do the procedure.

At anyrate after dealing with bloat myself I am a big advocate of preventing it. At least the stomach rotating part, the bloat may well still happen but if you are not at home the dog will survive. They might bloat but the stomach will not rotate. Big life saver...

http://vetsurgerycentral.com/gdv.htm Note: Contains images of the surgery. But is highly informative.

[ChinoPD]

i've been thinking about taking my mal and getting this done.

but to others you can prevent this by ensuring that their meals aren't so close to exercise.

[david_345]

I have a weim as well, a female, and the vet reccommended that she go through the operation to minimise the chances of bloat.

After discussing it with the breeder I bought the dog from (a very large reputable breeder of weimaraners) she told me to avoid the op because her dogs weren't prone to bloat. I do know that one of the main causes is genetic- if one of the dogs relatives had bloat it's more likely to get it.

I decided not to put my dog through unnecessary pain with the operation. Any opinions? She is currently 15 months old.

[slicerdicer]

Originally Posted by david_345

I have a weim as well, a female, and the vet reccommended that she go through the operation to minimise the chances of bloat.

After discussing it with the breeder I bought the dog from (a very large reputable breeder of weimaraners) she told me to avoid the op because her dogs weren't prone to bloat. I do know that one of the main causes is genetic- if one of the dogs relatives had bloat it's more likely to get it.

I decided not to put my dog through unnecessary pain with the operation. Any opinions? She is currently 15 months old.

http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/petcolumns/s...le_pf.cfm?id=5

Food is sometimes the cause of a dilated stomach, but often a dog's stomach will
mysteriously dilate, or bloat, for no known reason.

especially in predisposed breeds, may cause GDV,
but often there is no underlying cause, making this disease one that is baffling to
veterinarians and to owners alike.

http://www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/pups.htm

several national health surveys conducted by Purdue showed GDV to be the second leading cause of death following cancer, in large and giant breeds.

I would say your breeder is full of shit. Not to talk down to your breeder or talk bad about her but saying that there is no bloat in her dogs is just terrible. I consider breeders "who are good" to be very knowledgeable but I dont consider them to know everything. I do take what they say to heart but then I do my own research just to back it up after dealing with "Wobblers" and "GDV" myself. You see once you deal with many problems "Wobblers" causes death overnight or over time you can never tell. GDV can be a boom dead that day thing its very serious.

I tend to take things abit more seriously I guess than somebody who has not had to lose or nearly lose a member of the family.

[ChinoPD]

spoke to my vet about it, and i thought maybe i am over reacting by making my boy go through the operation but she agreed that it is not unusual for a large breed to go through GDV. looks like i'm booking my boy to go through it in the next 4-6 weeks.

i was also advised the dog can go home the same day of the operation, most probably the day after then it can stay home and take it easy. does anyone know roughly how long does recovery take at home? i plan on taking a few days off or even an entire week so i can ensure my mal behaves and takes it easy while it's stiched up.

Originally Posted by david_345

I decided not to put my dog through unnecessary pain with the operation. Any opinions? She is currently 15 months old.

my partner and i are away from home for 9.5 hours (inc travel) for work monday to friday. we split his food throughout the day, one in the morning and one in the evening. i don't know whether he runs or plays around in the back when we leave him in the morning on his own, if he does this right after we leave when he'd just eaten it increases the chances of bloat. in reply to your comment, i love my dog and i will play it safe. so i will not take any chances and ensure he goes through the op. rather the pain of the operation in exchange for his safety rather than the pain and agony (or maybe death) of bloat while he is unattended.

my mal already went through GDV once, it was terrible his stomach was so tight and could not sit/lay down. luckily when i took him to emergency there was no twist. vet advised bloat can be normal, but when the twisting of the stomach happens then that's when he's in real trouble.

Originally Posted by slicerdicer

[url]I tend to take things abit more seriously I guess than somebody who has not had to lose or nearly lose a member of the family.

same, people can call me paranoid about my mal. but i love him to death, i'll do anything to ensure he lives happy and healthy.

[david_345]

Thanks for the replies.

Until I read the original post and associated links I didn't actually realise that bloat was such a huge problem. I certainly wasn't aware it caused death so painfully and quickly.

Planning to talk to my vet about it early next week.

Just out of interest, my dog refuses to eat large meals. I'll fill her bowl with dry food and she will spend all day grazing on it.

[Redefine]

I also had a weimaraner who died of bloat. Thankfully he made it to the age of 15 before it took his life. I can still remember the night that he died, my brother and I were only young but we could tell he was in great pain, all he could just do was stand still and try and throw up. Bad thing was my parents were out late that night, so we had to wait for them to come home to take him to the vet.

We decided to have him put down, as most likely the surgery would have killed him anyway at his age.

[daztay]

Most of the dogs I know that have got bloat is they get it later in life 8years +, but this is no means a fact, I new about bloat when the parents got it (friends had the parents) but was alway iffy if I should go the surgical way, even after the first event I was still iffy about putting the dog through surgery. I figured I would be careful about food and exercise.

So I would wait a least till there older to make the decision on surgery.
I am no vet. Its good that some of you have talked to your vet about it, its worth knowing the facts.

My dog got bloat twice
mum got it 3 times
dad got it twice

not good odds really



edit
Just had a thought
getting surgery done a a young dog ..as they grow...they might have to be done again in the future......talk to vet

[slicerdicer]

Originally Posted by daztay

Most of the dogs I know that have got bloat is they get it later in life 8years +, but this is no means a fact, I new about bloat when the parents got it (friends had the parents) but was alway iffy if I should go the surgical way, even after the first event I was still iffy about putting the dog through surgery. I figured I would be careful about food and exercise.

So I would wait a least till there older to make the decision on surgery.
I am no vet. Its good that some of you have talked to your vet about it, its worth knowing the facts.

My dog got bloat twice
mum got it 3 times
dad got it twice

not good odds really



edit
Just had a thought
getting surgery done a a young dog ..as they grow...they might have to be done again in the future......talk to vet

Indeed bloat chances increase by several orders of magnitude as the dogs age. However getting the gastropexy done at neuter/spay is usually the course of action that the vet i am going to does. They should only need one surgery..

Waiting is not a option for me. I do not wait for a action to react. Also keep in mind a older dog does not heal as quickly. Why putoff to tommorow what you can do today to save your dogs life...

Also the anaesthesia for the surgery gets very dangerous as they age.. They can go to sleep and never wake up and so forth..

[daztay]

Good luck on the surgery , your dogs worth it.

I must admit that a large part of the decision for me was $$$, I ended up borrowing the money for him to have the operation but he died afterwards, that really sucks.

Your pets are just extra family members....

[ChinoPD]

it will cost about $1000 from my vet for my malamute, how much will it costs for you guys?