Dogs with Torsion or Bloat

Leerburg Questions & Answers
Dogs with Torsion or Bloat

GSD

We invite you to send the case history of your dog that either lived through a case of bloat or unfortunately passed away as a result of it. Maybe your case can help others.

Question:

Mr. Frawley,

I am grieving over the death of my 2 1/2 year old GSD, Django. He passed away Sunday, July 22nd, 2007.

Apparently his intestines became twisted and it killed him. The night before he was fine, playing, running, & catching his frisbee.

I let him out into the back yard Sunday morning. About an hour later I checked on him and found him under my deck. After coaxing him out I realized he was in pain. I though he may have got stung or possibly had a spinal injury from crawling under the deck.

After about an hour I called his vet and took him in. His heart rate was low, blood pressure was low, & gums were pale and gray. The vet took some blood tests. They were negative. He then took x-rays and discovered what he thought was bloat or a twisted stomach (although Django was not bloated).

He told us we probably caught it in time and he would have to do surgery. I agreed. About 30 minutes later he called and stated it was worse than he thought. He told me the intestines had became twisted inside and they were pretty much dead. The gas and bacteria were killing them. He advised that the process was so advanced I needed to put my best little buddy to sleep.

One day he was fine, the next he was dead. Maybe you can share some insight on twisted intestines. How does this happen? Are the dogs born this way? Can running and jumping cause this(throwing a frisbee)? Could he have twisted them trying to crawl out from under my deck? How long would it actually take from the time the intestines become twisted to the point of realizing something was seriously wrong? Did it happen Sunday, or could he slowly been dying over a period of days?

My vet stated he had never encountered this problem in a dog. A few horses(he compared it to colic), but no dogs.

At 2 1/2 Django was small for his age, about 60lbs. He had always been skinny. My vet also wondered if his weight and the twisted intestines were related in some kind of genetic disorder possibly?

I just really need some help understanding why this happened to the best dog I have ever known. Any insights you can share would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, for other GSD owners-these are the symptoms I noticed, if it happens to your dog maybe this will help you diagnose the problem quicker than we did:

-moping, head down, very tired
-laying down, but cant get comfortable-moving spot to spot
-when i would get near him to comfort him he would move to another spot
-wincing, whining
-pale, gray gums
-possibly went under the deck because he was already in pain, hiding from us when he was hurting
-bowels & stomach making digestive or growling noises
-was not bloated, but sensitive to touch in abdominal area

Thanks again for any insight you can share with me.

Sincerely,
Matt
Kokomo, IN

Picture of my little Djangy buddy attached!(above)

Ed's Response:

I am so sorry for your loss. I will put this on my web site. In 45 years of owning GSD's I have never had a dog with this - knock on wood. I do believe that there is a genetic factor to this. Keep that in mind when you get your next dog.

The problem with loving dogs is they don't live long enough.

Kind Regards,
Ed Frawley

Dr. Mr. Frawley,

On August 1, 2007, my dearest GSD Luke died on the operating table of twisted intestines. My vet , along with a consult had never seen anything like it in their life. All of the intestine was dead.

The symptoms that Matt described were fairly similar. As well my boy was 3 yrs and was also very thin despite a very high calorie diet. Is this genetic? My vet says torsion stomach yes, but has never heard of intestinal twist being hereditary. I guess we shall see as I have my boy's young son left. My heart goes out to anyone that has to endure this. It is an ugly and painful way to go.

Dawn
Prince George, BC, Canada

Hi Ed,

Maybe this information will help save a dog's life someday. The two people who wrote to you because they lost their beloved dogs to "twisted intestines" are talking about mesenteric torsion. This happens when the intestines twist around in a way that cuts off their blood supply, and the intestines begin to die. It happens in horses as well as dogs.

German Shepherds are at higher risk for mesenteric torsion. I suspect that "flat" German Shepherds, those with a narrow chest and narrow body, are at greatest risk.

Mesenteric torsion is often diagnosed too late, and the diagnosis requires surgery to be sure that this is the problem. If the intestines are too far gone, the only choices are to euthanize the dog on the operating table or let him suffer a horrible death. If the problem is caught soon enough, the intestines can be untwisted, and part of the intestines can be removed if necessary.

The problem is that the symptoms are often vague and not much different from stomach flu or digestive upset from eating trash. By the time it's obvious that something is seriously wrong, much additional time is usually wasted while the vet tries to figure it out.

When in doubt, cut! Insist that the vet do an exploratory surgery to find out what's wrong.

If your dog is acting ill, and you have the uneasy feeling that this is something awful, get him to the vet immediately.

I lost my beloved 3-year-old German Shepherd Sterling to mesenteric torsion. He was a very badly treated rescue dog whose only happiness began when I took him home. He had two wonderful months with me. One morning, he began acting slightly ill with some vomiting, and I soon became uneasy and took him to the vet ER. They found nothing, and kept him overnight. The next morning, he was acutely ill, and the internal medicine specialist found that he had developed peritonitis, but didn't know why. At this point, unbelievably foul diarrhea was flowing uncontrollably out of him. I insisted that an emergency exploratory surgery be done, and a surgeon did so. But by then it was too late. Most of the intestines had died, and we had to euthanize him on the OR table. I wish I had insisted the day I took him in that the vet operate. We might have saved him.

The day before his intestines twisted, he had rolled happily in the grass several times, and this may have caused the twisting, along with whatever anatomical abnormality predisposed him to twist. Perhaps German Shepherd owners should not allow their dogs to roll. Other than that, there isn't anything we know of that can be done to prevent mesenteric torsion. Because my German Shepherd had a narrow chest and body, I'd had a gastropexy done on him to prevent his stomach from torsion if he ever bloated. But it didn't prevent him from developing mesenteric torsion.

Mesenteric torsion is just hell, even worse than bloat.

Susan
Harvard, IL

Question:

A couple of days ago my German shepherd of 7 1/2 years died of bloat. Needless to say my other dog who was purchased from you is devastated. My question is how can I prevent this from happening again?

ANSWER:

This is such a tragic situation. I truly feel sorry for people who lose dogs to bloat. One minute they have a normal dog and the next minute it's gone.

I am not sure that there is a way to totally eliminate bloat. I have been lucky - in all the years in dogs it has never happened to me. I am not sure there is a way to stop it for sure. Here is what I have heard - and I am not sure it's not just an old wives tail:

Feed the dogs 2 times a day.
Feed the food wet - but let it soak for awhile.
Don't do a lot of hard exercise right after feeding.

PS: If anyone has other suggestions, send them to me and I will add them to this section.)

Another Suggestion is to take water from the dog for a couple hours after feeding. This works wonders. Also, during a spay, you can ask the vet to do a preventive stomach stapling.

Hi,

We are grieving the sudden loss of our very first German Shepherd. He was a beautiful happy 2 year old dog, playing and running, and suddenly gone in less than 24 hours. The first sign we had was that he vomited. But I did not know about bloat or torsion, and have seen many dogs, in my life time have a stomach upset, and be under the weather. We watch them, take water/food away, & as they get better, small drinks, feed them yogurt, or small bits of chicken. Or take them to the vet if not improving, to be treated for some ordinary thing. My Shepherd did not bloat up, and is more of the skinny flat type of Shepherd. He did not demonstrate a lot of obvious symptoms such as rolling in pain to give us an indication we had a life threatening situation on our hands. I replay how could I have known, or what could I have done different to change the outcome and save our dog, but the vet said there was nothing he or we could have done to save him. Our usual protocol had always been feeding two moistened meals a day. He was such a happy dog, and we miss him terribly.

I have been reading up on Torsion and Bloat. I had a 2 1/2 yr old male shepherd who passed away suddenly on 1/27/2008. He got up Friday at 4am and was vomiting, he couldn't get comfortable. I called the vet and he looked at him and did an x-ray, to discover Kaiser had intestinal torsion.

He did an emergency surgery, I brought him home the next day, he seemed to be a little better figured he was going to be fine. He still wouldn't eat though. That night around 3am he was vomiting again, and had trouble going to the bathroom. I called the vet again and he told me to rush him to the emergency animal clinic, 10 mins before I got there he passed away. I miss him terribly, I feel like the pain will never go away. He was like a child to me and so young to die. I hope this can help others with a disease that has no symptoms really until it's too late to save them.

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