As always wonderful information was made available regarding this horrible problem. Thank you to all our members, especially BoxerGirl who guards our Breed with her excellent knowledge base.
I must admit, I'm a little confused about the water issue. We take "Gulpies" to the dog park and when the dogs want a drink OR...give me the sideways eye look which means give me water, we do. Bailey takes some, but never a lot at a time, but her pal Kaleb will drink the Gulpy dry.
We leave kibble out in a bowl all the time. Bailey is a grazer, so, when she wants to she nibbles. Her main meal is the meat I prepare for her and she usually eats it over a few minutes and takes a few big slurps of water and that's it, back to napping. At night she'll drink a whole bowl of water before going to bed. I don't know why, she just does. We keep water out in two bowls, one upstairs and one down, so she never feels needy.
Does this problem only happen with kibble fed dogs? Mine eats kibble but it's more like a snack holding her over to dinner. When she gets chicken for supper, I sometimes find that she goes down and eats an entire bowl during the night. Chicken doesn't make her as full as beef. What about Raw Fed dogs? Is there any correlation with them and bloat?