Don't Let Your Dog Die Like This!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A terrible thing happened today.

My next door neighbor’s dog, a huge, beautiful boxer or mastiff, (I forget the name of the breed) contracted bloat and died in less than 24 hours. Large dogs are prone to this terrible condition, which is more than 80% fatal. (Horses get it too, actually.)

The dog was young and playful, and was continually agitated by a bunch of complete *&%#s who drive quads in an old state psychiatric hospital cemetary next to our houses almost every evening. Yes, the little *&%#@! ride quads on graves. With their parents’ blessings. In fact, the dog’s owners had been trying for years to get the cops to enforce the law and confiscate the quads, to no avail. They had also told the kids that they were going to kill the dog if they didn’t stop driving back and forth next to his yard and agitating him. (They anticipated a heart attack or heat stroke. They had never heard of bloat.)

Anyway, the dog’s strenuous runnning around and jumping in response to the quads caused his stomach to twist within his body. He spent the night gagging, pacing and drinking water which he would promptly throw back up. His owners thought that he had eaten something he shouldn’t (he was, as I say, a young and rambunctious animal), and waited until morning to take him to the vet. By the time they awoke, the dog had a bulge the size of a basketball sticking out of his abdomen. By the time he got to the vet, it was the size of a watermelon, and the dog couldn’t get up and out of the truck. The vet released some of the pent up gas, but the dog died on the way to the surgical hospital where he was to have undergone more extensive repairs. He was only two years old, friendly, completely non-aggressive and absolutely beautiful. He came from a family with five children, the youngest being around 5 and 6. They are all devastated with sadness, guilt, and rage.

IF YOU HAVE A LARGE DOG:

DO NOT let him run and jump around in a highly agitated state for long periods of time. Do whatever you have to do to calm him down or get him away from the source of the agitation.

DO NOT assume that strange behaviors as described above (gagging, pacing, vomiting) are just indigestion. Pacing, sleeplessness and shaking often indicate that a dog is in great pain. Get the dog to the vet immediately. Minutes count. Spend the extra money and go to the overnight emergency vet. Even if the dog ultimately doesn’t survive, you will save yourself a lot of guilt for not having acted sooner. If you are unwilling or unable to afford to go to the emergency vet at a moment’s notice, you should not own a dog! This may sound harsh, but it is a fact.

If you have a large dog, ask your vet about bloat the next time you see him or her. At the very least, do some research on it on the web. You need to know about bloat.

Poor Bubba. And poor family, to have to go to bed in a quiet house, with two dog bowls that will never be used again still standing on the kitchen floor.

2

Poor Bubba. I will never look at an agitated dog the same way again. Thank heavens I never had the energy to keep it up for long…

3

I think that taking some gasoline and a match to those quads would be justifiable. I’d do it for you if I lived near you.

4

I’m a basset owner, and am well familiar with torsion or bloat because the breed is prone to it.

I repeat Tenar’s advice: If your dog appears to be in this kind of distress, get thee to a veterinarian immediately. Quick action can save a dog’s life. If the dog is saved, sometimes surgery can be performed to “staple” part of the stomach to the side of the abdomen to make a dog less likely to suffer another episode. I also know basset owners who give their dogs a Gas-X tablet every day because they believe it can help prevent problems. I don’t know if that’s proven, though.

5

Feed large dogs out of raised dishes so they don’t have to bend down to eat, and don’t have to gulp as much.

Feed several small portions throughout the day, rather than a large one.

Be careful with kibble. When given to a large dog who eats it in quantity, they typically don’t eat much water with it. It becomes a large hard ball in the stomach that takes a while to break up and pass.

To fix this, kibble should never be fed alone. Water it down. Mix it with canned food.

What I did was buy chicken necks. I’d pressure cook them so the bones were soft, chop them up and mix them and the water they were cooked in with the kibble. The dogs loved it. It was good for them. It was cheap. No bloat.

6

I’ve owned Rottweilers since 1986. Scylla’s advice is good…all my dogs get fed twice a day from raised bowls, and no strenuous exercise within an hour of eating. Kibble & grains are the foods most likely to cause bloat.

Also, I refuse to feed commercial dog food. My dogs get raw meat & vegetables (plus some supplements.)

Hint: Cooking bones makes them more prone to splintering. Dogs short digestive systems are designed for eating RAW bones. Mine get lots of chicken backs & necks, beef ribs, etc.

7

carina:

Good point. You have to be careful with the chicken bones. I pressure cook the necks until the bones are basically jelly.

8

one question…what about the owners of the cemetary? If you know who’s been doing this, contact them and they would probably do someting about it (unless those are the parents you were speaking of). Last resort - Write a letter to the editor about what happened, and the families of the people in the cemetary whos graves are being driven over will probably take it from there.