Auster bloated last night (4/30). My family caught it early and rushed her to the vet (first to Dr. Parker's office, then the Emergency Clinic) and she pulled through the surgery, but isn't out of the woods yet. It was obviously pretty bad because the vet said that if Auster had just eaten a full meal she would be dead right now (Auster had just had 1/2 a donut) and that Auster had a 50/50 chance after surgery (we haven't asked since then, but Auster's perky and my mother is spending as much time there as the vets will allow). I'm at college until the 15th so I wasn't there (I just got off the phone, my mother didn't want to call until she knew how Auster was doing).

I have two questions. First, are there any supplements that I should buy to help her while her stomach is recovering? Digestive enymes, acidophillius, etc? My parents haven't talked with the vet about what to feed when she comes home, but I told them to buy Bil Jac frozen to feed for a while if the vet isn't too specific.

Second, when my parents took Auster to the emergency clinic they had to wait for 20 minutes for the tech to get there before the vet would see them. Our vet had called 40 minutes earlier (we live in a different state than the clinic so it took us that long to get there) letting them know that there was a dog with bloat coming in. Is it unreasonable to expect that the staff should be there 40 minutes after they knew we were coming? The vet told my parents that Auster's stomach looked really bad so I have reason to believe that the 20 minutes made things worse. If Auster has problems when they try giving her food should the crap hit the fan? I have no problem speaking my mind with these people after what happened (or worse if Auster doesn't make it!).

Lauren,
So sorry to hear about Auster, Our thoughts and prayeras are with you.
Keep the faith. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Very sorry to hear of Austers troubles. My hopes for a speedy recovery.

Hi Lauren
Our female dobe got bloat and I had no idea just how serious it is. We fed her nothing for the first couple of days after the operation and then the vet supplied some easy digestable food. She is a very strong bitch and five hours after the operation she walked out of the vets and before we could stop her she jumped into the car. If they get through the next week then they should be fine. You should take some precauctions from then on though such as crateting her after feeding for a couple of hours and watch the sort of foods you give (eg Dry Kibble, Pasta etc). But speak to your vet that no doubt you paid alot of money to and get all the information that you can about it. Good luck.

Lauren:
So sorry to hear about the bloat, but you are INCREDIBLY lucky he is through the worst of it. My previous dog got it, and I caught it early. I live in Manhattan; I picked up max at the day care place, fed him at home, then went off to class. Three hours later, i come home and he's pacing, foaming at the mouth, with a slight bulging middle. I didn't know what it was exactly, but I knew something was WRONG! So we walked to the hospital several blocks away. They knew it was bloat, but didn't have a surgeon on duty that night. So they reffered me to the animal hospital about 20 blocks south. All the while his stomach was expanding.
At the other hospital, they wouldn't operate on him until i had filled out forms and they made sure they were going to get their 2,000 dollars. But, as I learned later, in bloat the stomach fills up with gas that can't escape. It's when the stomach is full that it literally rolls over and cuts off the blood supply that is fatal. so max could wait a bit, just like Auster it sounds like, because the gas was just filling up. in other words, the stomach still had room to expand.
Did they staple his stomach to the intestinal wall? If not, sorry, but the chances of a re-bloat are about 80%. As far as recovery, Max, who was a dobie-rott mix and 7 years old, was out of the hospital in two days, and out walking about with me in four days. He was literally back to his old self within four days and eating normally.
BUT, i would suggest you switch to a raw diet once Auster is 100%. Less chance of bloating on a raw diet, from what I've heard. Good luck, I really hope he pulls through this.

When my 10 yr old had GDV (gastric dilitation - volvulus), I was advised to withhold food for a couple days, then feed him several small meals of liquified food (less time spent in the stomach digesting) and to give Cimetidine and Gas-X (there's no evidence that these drugs help, but vet thought why not try?). The surgeon also did gastropexy (suturing the stomach to the abdominal wall so it can't rotate again) and he said, as Scott007 said, that the incidence of recurrance is quite high and the gastropexy will at least prevent volvulus. It doesn't prevent the dog from bloating again, but it will keep the stomach from rotating, which avoids the main threat to the dog after bloat: when the blood vessels are blocked from the stomach rotation, toxins build up in the blood that are highly toxic to the heart. When the torsion is fixed, the blood and toxins are released; cardiac failure is the greatest threat to the immediate survival of the dog if it survives the initial surgery.

Well, I'm happy to report that Auster is still alive and has had two very small meals at the clinic. They are thinking about sending her home on Friday.

She torsed and bloated, so we are lucky that she is still alive. I'm unhappy with the emergency vet, but at least they did somehow remember to tack her stomach so she couldn't torse again. I'd already planned on changing her over to the raw diet and had planned on making the change once I got home from college. Until then at least the BilJac frozen won't expand in her stomach.

Scott, The emergency clinic here charges (in Savannah, GA) almost the same as yours! I'll have to post the whole story about the clinic when I get back from class.

Thanks for the good thoughts everyone! I am continually amazed at how much Auster has survived despite her vets.

SchH3, thanks for mentioning that! I will consider having an echocardiogram (?) done on Auster to see what happened and have documented proof of the state that she's in.

Just a comment - it isn't the food itself that expands in the stomach, so don't think that feeding Biljac can actually PREVENT GDV. The exact cause of GDV is unknown, altho there are some common factors (see my post under feeding puppies for the issue in JAVMA if you want to read the actual research).

The frozen Biljac isn't supposed to expand like kibble is. It's very concentrated so Auster won't need as much and it's the closest to the raw diet that I can get my parents to give until I get home to prepare Auster's diet. Sure, prepared raw would be nice but at over $3 a day it's out of our price range (the $$$ vet bill doesn't help). I don't think it will prevent anything, but I don't think it is as likely to cause problems either. I have a feeling that otherwise the vet would want my mother to feed canned Science Death.