Wet Noses & Poofy Heads

This is not the x-ray of a healthy dog. This is a medical emergency, requiring emergency surgery. This is an x-ray of my dog, Vegas.

Last night we had to rush him to the emergency after hours clinic in Salt Lake City, when you see your dog every day for 7+ years, you know something’s wrong, and my fears were confirmed when he was taken back and x-rayed. 

Vegas was diagnosed with gastric dilatation and volvulus, or more simply known as canine bloat with torsion. His stomach filled with gas, twisted on it’s axis, and continued to fill with gas without a way to release this gas. There is no wait and see with this diagnosis and they took him immediately into surgery. 

His stomach was put back into place and he also had a gastropexy and splenectomy, meaning his stomach was tacked to his abdominal wall to keep it from flipping in the future and his spleen was removed. Often when bloat occurs the spleen will become damaged, which can also be life threatening, and although the doctor continuously praised me on getting him there as fast as we did, she felt it was safest to remove it as well.

If you have a deep chested breed of dog that can bloat, research the symptoms, research preventative measures, find your nearest emergency clinic when you’re not panicking thinking your dog is going to die. We got him there before he even began to attempt vomiting (though he tried unsuccessfully in their lobby) and I had administered simethicone at home before we left. Keep this drug on hand! It’s the main ingredient in gas relief medicine, which I had in both capsules and a high concentrate bottle specifically for dogs called Bloat Buster (link here).

Trust me when I say you want to prevent this before it happens. You can have their stomachs tacked when they’re young and being spayed or neutered, or under any routine anesthesia. A $600 surgery is nothing compared to the $2,300+ emergency surgery that bloat often leads to, and that was with a discount from me working at an animal hospital (didn’t know they did that, it was nice).

I have a maxed out credit card but my dog is alive.