Save your dog from the lethal dog bloat
The most severe disease in dogs. Also known as the mother of all emergencies.
I don’t usually like to talk about medical conditions in pets because it usually generates me a great discomfort. Today I’m going to make an exception. I hope what I explain here saves the lives of more than one pet.
Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus or BLOAT — is a severe disease that affects many dogs at some time in their lives and is lethal if not treated urgently.
Without treatment, the animal could die easily. If treated, up to 60% of the dogs survive. Recognizing the symptoms in time will be vital.
This condition can be divided into two phases:
- Gastric dilatation: Stomach swells progressively with gas, fluids or food. Pressing the organs, veins and arteries around.
- Volvulus: (lethal complication) The swollen stomach twists, cutting off circulation. If this happens, the dog can go into shock and die in several hours without a very aggressive treatment.
The importance of detecting quickly the symptoms of the disease lies in preventing the stomach from entering the lethal phase of rotation.
Symptoms
This is the most important thing you should learn. Because recognizing the symptoms of gastric torsion can save your dog’s life. Below there are all of them, and I also leave you a very illustrative video.
Here are the most common symptoms, from least to most serious:
- Body position: head and tail down, with the back bent. With the legs sideways, trying to widen
- Restlessness: walking from one place to another, awkwardly. He is unable to sit
- He coughs a lot, has retching and belches
- Difficult breathing
- Drooling and vomits a white and viscous liquid
- Lack of energy
- Pale gums
- Weak pulse
- Fainting
- Shock
To illustrate all this and help you to recognize it visually, I leave you a real video of an akita that the keepers recorded to send to the vet.
As noted in the video, the akita was saved in time thanks to this video. And maybe your dog too.
How to act?
If you have detected the symptoms of gastric torsion in your dog, you must act quickly to save his life. Which means going to a vet as quickly as possible.
- Keep calm. Although you will be nervous, try not to stress your dog more . This would only make the symptoms worse.
- Call a veterinarian to organize. He will give you priority if he isn’ working on another urgency. If he couldn’t attend you, ask him for another professional nearby contact.
- Don’t go alone. Let someone else watch the dog while you go to the consultation and to be responsible for making all those calls.
- Mentalize yourself that in an advanced twist the dog can go into shock. Maybe your assistant has to revive him (CPR) while you get to the vet.
In case you are interested in learning to apply CPR to a dog, I leave you a very illustrative video of Melanie Monteiro, which I will talk about later:
Veterinary treatment
Once the bloat has been detected, the intervention will vary according to the case, the professional and the available equipment. But as a general rule you should expect this type of action to be followed:
- The use of X-rays to see inside the dog and see if it really has a bloat.
It could look something like this:
If it is a gastric torsion, the treatment will be choosen according to the severity:
- Extraction of stomach’s content with a tube, if the stomach is inflated but not twisted.
- Surgical treatment, to return the organs to their place. This is usually done when the torsion is very advanced.
- “Gastropexy”, or “sticking the stomach to the body”; This is sometimes done prevent the stomach from twisting in the future.
Prevention
We don’t know exactly what causes gastric torsion at the physiological level. As we have already indicated, the massive accumulation of food, liquid and gas can activate it.
However, there will be some risk factors that will make the appearance of this condition more likely. On the one hand it will be the characteristics of the dog or else bad habits.
Types of dogs with risk
It could happen to large dogs and breeds with a narrow chest like:
It also affects if the dog is:
- Very old
- Descendant of dogs that suffered a bloat
- Psychological problems such as: anxiety, hyperactivity or stress
To detect the latter, this article would be useful:
Bad habits
All kinds of activities that can facilitate overfilling the stomach of food, air and water in any combination.
- Feeding him once a day, a large meal:
A dog should eat two or more meals a day in small portions
- Doing plenty of exercise right after eating a big meal
If some day you can’t stop him from eating a large meal, keep him from exercising until 2 hours after eating. And also prevent him from drinking large amounts of water.
- Eating high carbohydrate diet, which always increases the risk
- Dogs that eat too fast
You can change all these bad habits quickly. You only need consistency in most cases, or seek the help of a dog trainer if you think it‘s necessary.
This article is based on a course I did with Melanie Monteiro, highly recommended instructor to become familiar with the most common diseases and learn first aid techniques that could save your dog’s life.
If you are interested in taking a look, Melanie gives us an exclusive 80% discount to buy it, limited to the first 50 buyers.
Feel free to click 👏👏👏 x 50 to help this reach much more people. If this can help a friend, share it on twitter and facebook by clicking on the other buttons.
If you want to stay informed about the world of pets I recommend you to visit Animal.cat or just follow my profile. I write content every month that I translate simultaneously. You can also drop me an email at nick@animal.cat
If you have any additional advice, please leave your comment to let us learn together.
Thanks for reading!
