2/24/2021 - I'm just copying and pasting a post I made a while ago... (FWIW, my girl presented at Stage III without the other symptoms.) Purdue Bloat Study. For those of you not in the US who may not know, Purdue is a school of veterinary medicine and it's very good. The studies they publish are legitimate scientific studies. https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/bloat-purdue-study.html Here is the bloat chart I keep in my cabinet. Info on the bloat accupressure point. https://www.iwclubofamerica.org/bloataccupressure And lastly two videos of dogs that are bloating. One lives and one doesn't. Please do watch these, even though they aren't pleasant. The symptoms are so vague that it's easy to miss and I think it's important to see that it really doesn't look life threatening. My daughter had two cohort members, after having been in practice for a couple of years, that lost dogs to bloat and they knew what to look for. If you do our own search on YouTube there are some videos showing how massaging and or rolling your dog around (that one's an EM) work for bloat. Of course anyone can to what they feel best, but I think that's dangerous and a waste of time. Get your dog to the vet ASAP, don't mess with massage and rolling. "Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment." - Mahatma Gandhi
Thank you so much for this vital, succinct chart on bloat. I will file a digital copy of it away. By way of some more possible information here (and know that this is something that I was told by a couple of people in person, and saw a few others post online on the Doberman forum): I guess having GasX (an anti-gas product for humans) on hand is a good idea ? Seems too simplistic and obvious, but this is what they said. In 25 years involvement with Dobes, I had never heard this; but apparently some experienced folks hold this to be true. It may be worth looking into, everyone. I still do not have any, but I intend to get some and to investigate further.
I keep GasX on hand and have used it on my boxers in the past (25+ years here too). It was suggested to me by experienced boxer owners when I first started posting on forums many years ago. When my daughter worked at the emergency clinic the vets there didn't seem to feel it did much good. I think they were concerned that people would give the anti-gas medication and not seek additional veterinary care, which is obviously not what you want to do. Seems to me though that if you catch it early and it's ONLY bloat then it would help while you're getting your dog to the vet. I know that if you get our dog in before torsion they can place a tube to relieve the gas. All dogs can bloat, it's the torsion that kills them. If the stomach has flipped then GasX won't help, nor will a tube. I will always keep an anti-gas medication on hand because I don't see that it can possibly hurt anything in the early stages. Same with the pressure points.
A couple of links to add on raised feeding. So everyone can read and make their own decisions. I will say that my girl was fed with a raised dish for many years and ate slowly so I was never concerned. My boxers have also eaten from raised dishes and I never had a problem. So???? I dunno. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=...rticles/bibliographie/SDTE/javma.2000.217.pdf https://moonstruckmeadows.com/Bloat (GDV) Study.htm
And more info on gastropexy. https://www.akcchf.org/canine-healt...ing-for-your-dog/prophylactic-gastropexy.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4187373/ FYI for anyone that doesn't feel like reading the articles. The procedure doesn't prevent bloating. It's supposed to prevent the stomach twisting. My research tells me that doesn't always happen, so even if one chooses a prophylactic gastropexy any signs of GDV need to be treated as an emergency.
Unfortunately, I also had an incident when my dog was bloated and I didn't know what to do to help him. I hurried to the vet and I was lucky that he gave us a good treatment and on the same day the problem was solved. I had a lot of stress and I was very scared that I would lose my dog and my soul hurt a lot. Good thing everything went well. By the way, I have an English lab dog. You can watch on https://worlddogfinder.com/blog/dog-breeds/english-lab how cute this dog breed looks. Maybe you will want the same type of dog.
