Surgery To Prevent Bloat

[animalia]

I have seen approximately 4 dogs bloat, 3 I picked up the clinical signs and rushed them to the vet, all three had no food and not an excess of water in the stomach, the fourth unfortunately had past away overnight. Every single one of those dogs were large deep chested dogs, all preventatives like not exercising around feed time, not letting them gulp or drink excessive amounts of water, not feeding large meals ect..... (and I personally don't raise food bowls). Working with dogs bloat is ALWAYS at the back of my mind, and the relief of working with a dog that has had the bloat surgery is such a good feeling. I am personally all for the operation, technically the dogs stomach should never come off it's axis and flip ever again, but it has happened. Why wait for the dog to bloat to then do the operation, what happens if your not home when or if your dog bloats, prevention is better than the cure.

[Erny]

Attached is the result of research I did recently on bloat/GDV for another forum. Thought some of you might find it useful.

bloat.doc

I second Staranais' comment - it is a nice write up and quite startling to see so many of the commonly understood recommendations being challenged as myth. Interesting, well written and you obviously put a fair amount of work into it, AtD.

Edited April 15, 2010 by Erny

[Addicted to Dogs]

Thanks for the praise guys . Did I mention that as well as being addicted to dogs I'm also addicted to learning as much about them as I can (and sharing what I find).

[Erny]

Wouldn't the 'tacking' of a pup's stomach to the abdominal wall be affected by growth? Probably a stupid question and the answer is probably "they do it and there's been no problems" but I'm just curious. Or is it about 'where' they tack it, that it is unaffected also by growth?

[Staranais]

Wouldn't the 'tacking' of a pup's stomach to the abdominal wall be affected by growth? Probably a stupid question and the answer is probably "they do it and there's been no problems" but I'm just curious. Or is it about 'where' they tack it, that it is unaffected also by growth?

Hmmm you do ask good questions Erny! Perhaps the insides and outside grow at the same rate?

[stormie]

I think the age at which they're usually done, there isn't a significant amount of growth yet to happen and nothing that happens all that rapidly. For example, I would say most owners of giants wait till the 12months mark for desexing - there is still obviously some growth after this but its much slower and nothing that would affect the surgery.

[Gretel]

The pup I was asking about was desexed at only 5 months old.

[Winterpaws]

Tina had this surgery done last year when she had an intusucception

We think it is what prevented her from being very ill on Good Friday. She got sick at about 11.30 that night and we had to rush to the emergency vet. She had all the symptons of bloat - restless, wanting water and started retching when I was on phone to vet.

Vet also thinks she may have started to bloat but it didn't develop? So other than a massive vet bill we got through it pretty well

If I ever have another bloat susceptible breed I wouldn't hesitate to do this surgery