We don’t know why, but Chez got bloat without stomach torsion (aka gastric dilatation without volvulus). This is good. Many times when dogs get bloat their stomach twists (gastric dilatation with volvulus or GVD) and it’s a medical emergency. Luckily Chez got bloat (filled up with gas and food with no release of either), without the twisted tum.
I came home from a mush and noticed that Chez was quite big. Luckily, my neighbor who is an MD was over and showed me how to tap his stomach and lungs to determine if air was in his stomach– it was. I brought Chez to the emergency vet (of course this happened on the weekend in the evening), where they took his vitals and have him mylanta and took ex-rays. The ex-rays showed gas and kibble in his stomach. After the ex-rays, they gave him morphine to induce him to vomit– he never did. Since he didn’t vomit, we waited a while and tried gas-ex. This didn’t work, and soon my favorite doc showed up, Doc. MP, and she and Doc. R and the vet tech put a tube down his throat into his stomach to relieve the gas. Note, they stuck a Kong in his mouth and taped his snout. Doc. R sucked the other end of the tube to get things flowing. Yummy!
Chez getting tube stuck down throat
Doc MP sticking tube through the Kong hole.
After some of the gas (and kibble) came out of the tube I brought Chez home and he was under watch for several days. He’s doing fine now; however the Docs told me that he could bloat again at any time.
