How We Almost Lost Maddie to Bloat this Weekend

[Harper]

We have two dogs, a 17 week-old Labradoodle puppy named Harper and a 13 and a half year-old Dalmatian named Maddie.  This weekend we almost lost Maddie to bloat and it was a terrifying experience.  The good news is that she is back from the animal hospital and is recovering well.

 

Everything was normal on Friday night and Maddie was scarfing up her food.  She stopped eating after awhile and started acting weird.  She was extremely restless and wouldn't calm down even when we took her to her bed.  She kept trying to throw up but was never successful, something I had never seen before.  Apparently this is the number one sign of bloat.  She kept trying to throw up every 5 minutes but nothing would happen.  She didn't have the typical bloated stomach yet, but I'm sure it would have gotten there.  Dalmatians almost never get bloat due to their body type, but the vet thinks it must have happened after she had a full stomach, fell over, and the food and water just sloshed the stomach until it flipped over.  

 

At the time we had no idea what was happening and we were waiting it out to see if it would get better.  If we had known it was bloat we would have rushed her to the vet immediately because it can apparently kill a dog within an hour (imagine how much this scared me when I found this out).  Our vet is only 2 miles away and is open 24 hours, so we were able to rush over there once we started to suspect it was serious.  She got an X-ray immediately that showed her flipped stomach and they operated right away.  Thank goodness we caught it in time and she was able to get the surgery to flip her stomach back the right way before anything serious happened to her organs.  The surgeon tacked her stomach to her insides with 5 stitches so we could be almost certain it would never happen again.  

 

I hope no one else has ever had to deal with bloat, but please keep an eye on your dogs (especially the larger ones) because it can happen to the ones you don't expect.  

[L.M.]

So glad Maddie is okay! That's a beautiful picture of her up there!  

I lost my childhood dog, a boxer, to bloat.  Every time I read stories like yours, while I know they are terrifying to experience, a lot of people learn from them and can hopefully recognize the signs early like you did.  Hope Maddie has a speedy recovery!  =)

[Judi, David & Maddie Irishdoodle]

So happy to hear your story has a happy ending and that Maddie is now fine. My brother in law lost his dog to bloat several years ago. It's a scarey thing.

[Jane, Rooney & Stuart]

Glad this ended up with a good outcome! 

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

OMD so glad Maddie is ok

[Kyoko]

Bloat is really scary. Butter had this few years ago, when he was 12. Chow Chows are really not on the list for the risk of bloat. They said that senior citizen dogs are more susceptive to this due to weaken muscle.

I am so glad Maddie came out of it surgery safely and successfully!