Is there anything you can do to prevent bloating?

Hello,

I read some of the posts on your site about bloat and torsion. We had a black lab not a GS, however what I am reading sounds like our guy had torsion. What pains me is that we may have had some "signs" early on in his life that, had we known maybe he would still be here.

He was a big lab, when healthy about 85 lbs, but always slender. You could always see at least one rib on Rouge, sometimes two but feed him like crazy. What seemed "fat" to us on Rouge was probably normal girth on any other dog.

About a year ago last spring he got very skinny. We were feeding him, so we worried something was wrong. Went to the vet and did blood work and nothing wrong, no explanation. So we switched food, kept a close eye and he "came back" in about a month (looking back I think this may have been a partial twist that somehow corrected). On April 12 we noticed he was getting skinny again. Started feeding him a bit more, but he just kept getting skinny. I would say within days he lost about 15 pounds. So back to the vet. She did blood work, nothing wrong, sent him home with instructions to try a different food. That night when I got home from work he had deteriorated so much, looked even skinnier and was lethargic, he tried to go outside to do his business and collapsed. I immediately brought him back to the vet saying he needs an IV or something, something is not right. They did xray and he was completely blocked up. He had surgery that night and indeed his colon was twisted. At that point it was blue not black so there was hope, she untwisted it and it turned pink. The next day he seemed to be doing better but had been under so long that she was concerned and he stayed with the vet for a second night but we were very hopeful that Saturday. Sunday a.m. he started vomiting again. She did another xray and his colon was three times it normal size and no food was passing. We had to put him down. It was horrible. Rouge was 9 years old.

We found out that another dog that would have been Rouge's sister also died of a twisted intestine. I think this may be genetic. And wondering what can be done to be proactive in dealing with this terrible condition if you have a dog you think may be related to another with such issues or a breed known for these issues. What I have read in the other posts tells me:

• Some sort of stapling at time of spay can help?
• Feed wet food two times per day
• no activity after eating

Is this right? Is there anything else? We will get another dog when ready and it will most likely be another lab (but not from that breeder) just looking for advice on how to maybe prevent from ever needing to go threw this pain again.

Debi