Note to large(r) dog owners

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Frank-Likes-Beer

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Familiarize yourself with the signs of bloat. I almost lost my boy last night when he developed it. I was clueless as to what was going on and almost waited to contact the vet thinking dinner just didn't agree with him . You only have a couple hours from the onset to get them to a vet before it's too late.
 
Also commonly referred to as torsion, gastric torsion, and gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV) .

Something Greyhound owners have to be particularly alert for.
 
Yes - GDV can happen to any dog really, but the deep-chested dogs are more at risk. My wife (vet) sees bloated dogs fairly often and they do not all make it. If you do suspect bloat, do not wait to bring the dog in to the vet. The organs start to die as soon as the blood flow is constricted.

The dog's stomach will be very tight to touch, and painful, and they will likely be panting. They will dry-retch, may act strangely, getting up and laying down quickly or repeatedly. They'll act just plain uncomfortable.

A common factor is how fast your dog eats its meal. You should not allow them to inhale their food quickly. Also don;t let them drink a lot of water after a hard run or workout.

There is an operation that can be performed if a dog suffers bloat and survives (or even before so), where the vet will tack the stomach to the inner chest cavity wall. This will not prevent bloat re-occurrence (gas filling the stomach), but it will prevent the life threatening twisting of the stomach. My wife performed it on our friends' great dane when the dog was in the hospital for another stomach related incident (operation). This was a preventative measure simply because Danes are at high risk.
 
Yeah, they tacked him stomach when they performed the op to help reduce the risk of it twisting again. I was suprised (scared) when the surgeon told me last night that there was still a 25% chance that he wouldn't make it even with the surgery. :-\
 
I heard that hand feeding a fast eater is the only way to slow them down. Some dogs will slow down after being hand fed for some time, but some not.

We have a Staffordshire Bull Terrier that inhales her food. Maybe we need to slow her down as well.
 
They make bowls that are supposed to help.
brakefastbowl.jpg
 
How do you slow down a dog from eating fast? Out black lab inhales her food.


My yellow lab was like this. put 2 tennis balls in the bowl with there food. they have to eat around them.if 2 doesnt work try 3. another thing is after they eat do not let them run or play with other dogs for about 30 minutes till the food digests.
 
For our Golden and our Irish Setter, both who normally inhales their food, I add water to the dry kibble. That really slows them down (and keeps them hydrated at the same time). The special food bowls do work as well.
 
Glad you caught this! Another way to help dogs learn to chew is to feed them food they HAVE to chew (you can mix it in with kibble), such as chunks of raw beef. Frozen chunks of meat works even better. You can actually buy frozen raw meat patties at a lot of pet stores now as well, which we used as an occasional treat for our pup at dinner time.
 
my dalmation used to inhale his food. I think he thought someone was going to take it away. Started letting him eat out of the bag instead of the dog bowl and when he saw that he had all of that food he slowed down all by himself. :mug:
 
Luckily we haven't had an issue with this with our dane, she eats when she wants, slowly. We only have one dog so I'm sure that helps.

Eli, didn't the dogs just pull out the tennis balls...
 
Can we have an update on how the pooch is doing?

He is doing MUCH better, thank you for asking. He spent the entire day after surger (last Wednesday) at the vet so they could keep an eye on him. He went a couple days without eating much, which I guess is expected. He's prolly back to 75% now. Has his appetite mostly back and is moving around a lot more. He's still hesitant with somethings, like jumping up on the couch. He is even playing with our 4 month old pup some now, just no running thru the house and wrestling. Yet. :D

Something I found out is if you have a female dog, they can tack the stomach when you get them spayed to help prevent bloat. We are already planning to do this with our Malamute pup.
 
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