Kenny survived GDV surgery!!!!

I'm glad he made it through!

So sorry you and Kenny had to go through this. Glad to hear he's on his way to recovery!

Thanks, he is getting better everyday, I am convinced it is dog food that causes bloat, but no one seems to know, So I am switching him to Honest Kitchen and cooking his food in the crock pot.

Yay KennY! What were you feeing him?

how does this happen and how can we gard against this problem.

So glad to hear he's almost out of the woods, I'll send a few prayers up for him that he continues to heal. I'm sorry you had to go thru this, I know it's very tough and stupidly expensive.
My husband says there's an unusually high occurrence of bloat in the working dogs over in Iraq, my guess would be that some of those dogs are just worked so hard, they don't get much of a break. They flew one dog to Germany not but two weeks ago that barely survived.

Kenny looks so much like Bo. Best wishes for his continued healing.

So happy to hear the good news and hope he continues to improve. Bloat scares the heck out of me. I always wonder how on earth I would pay for it.

vat said:

So happy to hear the good news and hope he continues to improve. Bloat scares the heck out of me. I always wonder how on earth I would pay for it.

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Thats what I was scared of too. I have $ stashed for emergency's but not 6k that it can cost... SO I ended up getting Petplan insurance. They cover it and anything else like that that could pop up. I feel a little bit safer with it knowing that god forbid it happens, its taken care of and I only pay 100 out of pocket.

GLAD he survived! prayers to all of u. but someone tell me how does this bloat occur? i take great care to see that mia doesn't do any thing other than rest 1 hr befor and after meals! but apparently it still happenes? how? why?

bellamia said:

GLAD he survived! prayers to all of u. but someone tell me how does this bloat occur? i take great care to see that mia doesn't do any thing other than rest 1 hr befor and after meals! but apparently it still happenes? how? why?

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Lots of articles on the internet. This one covers what it is, possible reasons why it happens, what to do etc.
Bloat ? What You Know Can Save Your Dog?s Life

There are tons more of them, just happened to click on this one first.

I am glod to hear of the survival also. My friend lost her dog to torsion last weekend. He had complications after the surgery.

She is taking a young male another friend has to be her house dog. He will be gastropexied before we take him to her as I know she does not want to face another torsion situation if it can be avoided. I am planning to gastropexy my young male in the near future. The vet here is good at this preventative surgery. He did both of his young shepherds this year also.

I don't know why torsion occurs. Do we have the answer to it? My vet seems to think that sometimes things that trigger abnormal gut contractions can cause the horrible process to begin.

I'm sure that there are others far more well versed in this area...... from what I've read and heard sometimes there are simply unknown causes. Torsion (again speaking off of what I've been told by other handlers) is caused after eating before digestion when the dog runs, it flips the stomach over inside the belly and causes the food to get stuck. It's basically like the stomach inside the dog looks like a sausage at both ends and the food can go nowhere. The only fix is immediate surgery and theres usually still a 25%-33% death rate. So it's definitely serious. I don't know any other causes but at the very least I make my dogs be calm after eating for a while.

glad to hear he's doing well and prayers for a full recovery!!! scares the heck out of me thinking how easy and quick that kind of thing can happen.

I was feeding him Taste of the wild dry food

He was fine in the morning and was inside all day sleeping, when I came home at night he was acting weird, so running around did not trigger this, I have feed him elevated and non elevated, veterinary medicine has no idea what causes bloat but he is predisposed to it since he is a GSD and it could have been bad breeding who knows. The one thing I do know is that his stomach was full of dog food that i had fed to him around 9AM and he still had not digested it when I took him to ER. They said his stomach had not twisted yet, so I got him there in time, but he has a really bad pneumonia and is on three weeks worth of clavamox, all I can say is that the link always goes back to commercial food. His surgeon told me the Purdue study is not precise because they researched breeds that were already predisposed to it and deep chested dogs, but did not break it down by what they were eating, what brand of food, possible ingredients etc.

Samba....how much is it going to cost to have the dog gastropexied and at what age can it be done?

So glad your dog made it through! Why do you think it is TOTW?

I dont think its the brand, but am sure that dry dog food has allot to do with it because it expands in their stomach, studies also show that certain preservatives like citric acid can cause bloat, and they also say that feeding canned food is the way to go if you have a dog prone to bloat or a homemade diet.

I find that veterinary prices vary greatly depending on the part of the country.

One of the good things about living in the middle of nowhere is that it costs me about 200.00. Of course an emergency gastropexy in response to a torsion is much higher and riskier.