WHAT IS BLOAT in Dogs | Is my Dog Bloating | Emergency

As most of you guys know, recently we had a run in with bloat with Oakley. A lot of you guys, don't know what it is, didn't know what it is and wanted to know more. This video is going to be all about bloat. First question you guys had, what is bloat? Bloat is very dangerous. It can become extremely life threatening very quickly, if not treated immediately. There aren't any home remedies. There's nothing you can safely do at home. If your dog is experiencing bloat, or you think they're experiencing bloat, you need to call the vet immediately. If you come to this video looking for what to do, because you think your dog is bloating, stop watching the video, pick up the phone and call your vet now. Bloat is also known as, pronounced gastric dilation volvulus or GDV. Those are some other things you may see it listed as. It occurs when a dog's stomach fills up with air, fluid or food and or food. When it happens, a dog's stomach basically blows up like a balloon and it starts to put pressure on all their organs. It can decrease blood supply to those organs. It becomes very dangerous very quickly. Some dogs with bloat will just fill up with air and some dogs will bloat and their stomachs will actually twist. They can twist 90 to 360 degrees. Their stomach will actually flip over. If your dog's stomach twists, emergency surgery has to be done to put the stomach back in the right place. If their stomach is just expanded, they will need to be decompressed, which is what happened to Oakley. Fortunately, her stomach didn't actually twist. It just expanded. What are signs and or symptoms of bloat? The most obvious sign you're going to see of bloat is going to be the enlarged belly. You should be able to see it very clearly in most dogs. It's going to look a lot like a balloon. Another telltale sign is the dog trying to vomit, yet nothing is coming out. They may cry while trying to vomit. They're going to be, you know, just trying to puke. Nothing is going to be happening. Another sign would be like just acting not like their normal selves, looking haunched up, weakness, drooling, foaming at the mouth, discomfort, crying, restlessness, pacing back and forth, standing with their legs widespread, not wanting to walk, crying when you touch their stomach area, very rapid heartbeat, excessive panting, pale gums because they may be going into shock, weak pulse and some dogs will even collapse. Those are a lot of the classic clinical signs for bloat that you're going to want to look for if you think your dog may be bloating. What are the causes of bloat? Um, believe it or not, the exact cause of bloat is still something that scientists are studying. They're not 100% sure of the exact cause. Some of the causes that are thought to have to cause bloat are stress, believe it or not, raised food bowls. There have been studies that have shown that elevated food bowls can cause dogs to swallow more air than normal, which can actually lead to bloat. I noticed a lot of you guys suggested Oakley using a raised food bowl. You really should only be using a raised food bowl if your vet has instructed you to do so because like I said, studies have shown that raised bowls can lead to bloat. Other things that can cause bloat, rapid eating, eating dry foods that contain fat is one of the first four ingredients. Not really sure why that is, but studies have shown that's one of the reasons. Eating a lot of gas producing foods, drinking too much water too quickly, exercising right after eating. Basically, you want to give your dog about an hour to let food settle. Kind of use that, you know, swimming, you know, don't go swimming so long after eating, even though they say it's a myth. Kind of just keep that in mind. You don't want them to go running around right after they eat their food. Give them about an hour for their food to settle. Genetics can cause bloat. Like if the dog is a parent who was more susceptible to bloat and had bloated, the puppies that they have can actually be more susceptible to bloat. Deep chested dogs are more susceptible to bloat. Anxiety, medications such as antibiotics. Antibiotics tend to produce a lot of gas and if your dog is on antibiotics, they can be more susceptible to bloat. Those are just some of the causes, some of the things that they think can cause bloat. What should I do if I think my dog is bloating? Call your vet immediately. Don't wait. If you have any reason to think that it's bloat, make the call. I would rather be wrong than to wait and have something horrible happen. It's estimated that about 40% of dogs that develop bloat do not survive. And some of that reason is because people don't know what bloat is and they don't know that they need to call immediately. So if you think it's bloat, the best thing you can do is call your vet. It's better to be safe than sorry. How is bloat treated? When you arrive at your vet's office, they're most likely going to want to do a blood test and an x-ray. Your dog probably will be in shock. Oakley was in shock. Her gums were really pale. The blood test will confirm shock and also tell the vet many other vital things that they need to know. The x-ray is going to show them if their stomach has started to twist. If it's starting to twist or if it has already twisted. The x-ray will also confirm if it is bloat or not. Most likely the dog is going to be put on IV fluids and sometimes antibiotics and painkillers will also be given. In our situation, the next thing our vet did was sedate our dog so that a tube could actually be put down her throat. Normally, if they can get a tube to pass all the way down into the dog's stomach, then the dog's stomach has not yet twisted and they can start to decompress the dog. What that means is the air and the gas that is trapped in their stomach gets released through that tube and then they actually pump their stomach and they remove all of the fluid and food that's in their stomach. After the stomach is empty, they put anti-gas medication kind of like malax. I think actually they did use malax at our vet's office. They put that back into their stomach and that will help prevent a buildup of gas again because once a dog has bloated, even if they decompress them right after it happens, bloat could occur again very quickly so they try to do everything they can to stop it from happening again. More than likely the dog's gonna have to be kept on IV fluids, kept overnight and monitored so that the bloat doesn't happen again. Now if the tube will not go down the dog's throat and the x-ray shows that their stomach has twisted, then some decisions have to be made. Surgery is the only way to save the dog at that point. The dog normally is stabilized and they'll do surgery where they'll open them up and they'll actually put their stomach back into the correct position. A lot of times the stomach will be stapled or sutured into place so that it can't flip again and then depending on how damaging the bloat has been, like we said earlier, it can do a lot of damage to the internal organs. Sometimes a vet will decide to like remove the dog's spleen, take out parts of the stomach, they'll assess the damage when they get in there. The damage to other organs, it depends on how bad the damage can be but a lot of times if their stomach has twisted when they get in there if there's too much damage, sadly sometimes the dogs can't be saved. But if this happens you gotta stay positive and hope for the best. After surgery the dog has to be monitored for several days. Usually they have to stay at the vet for a couple days and then they watch for signs of infection and heart abnormalities. Because of all the pressure it puts on the organs it can dogs can develop arrhythmias in their heart after bloating so it's just something that they kind of keep an eye out for. So now I'm sure you're all wondering how can bloat be prevented? The best thing you can do is feed your dog small meals throughout the day. We used to feed our girls twice a day but now we're actually doing three small feedings a day just to be safe. Another thing you can do, use a slow feed bowl. We sell them in our online store at gonetothesnowdogs.com there's a link down in the video description. We now carry big ones and mini ones so you can use them for big dogs or little dogs. I plan on doing another video with those soon and showing you guys the difference in the sizes in those bowls and things like that. Avoid feeding your dog from a raised food bowl unless instructed to do so by your vet. Guys, if this is something you're questioning call your vet and talk to them about it just to be sure. Make sure your dog has fresh clean water available at all times but watch them for over drinking. If they come inside from running around and playing don't let them drink too much too fast. I mean let them get a drink but don't let them overdo it. Limit their exercise directly before and after meals. Like I said probably about half an hour before they eat make sure they're not doing way too much and then about an hour after they eat just not over stimulation or over exercise. Some vets also suggest adding a bit of canned dog food to the dry dog food. We haven't started doing that. Our vet said you know that was up to us but that may be something you could try. You really want to avoid highly stressful situations. We actually think that that's what caused Oakley to bloat was the fact that she had just ate and then she had her Konons plus the antibiotics so she kind of stressed out. She went into a freak out mode and she bloated. The best thing you can do become educated about what bloat is. I think we covered a lot of information in this video that will help you understand bloat a bit better. Like we said bloat is very life-threatening and the faster you realize what's going on the better chance your dog has of surviving. We were very very lucky with Oakley. We knew right away what was happening and we reacted as quickly as we could. So what can you do? Share this video with your friends and family. Spread the word because education is the key to helping save dogs lives when it comes to things like this. If you don't know what's going on you don't know what to do. So if you know what bloat is and you know how to react you could save somebody's dog's lives. You could save your own dog's life. We really hope you learned something today. Thank you again for all of your love and support that you sent us about Oakley while we were going through this. She really scared us but thankfully she's doing so much better. We have amazing vets around here and we are so thankful. Thankful to our vets. Thankful to you guys for sending all the positive thoughts and the love. We totally appreciate it. So that's all we have for today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for subscribing. Stay positive. Dream big. And we'll see you soon. Goodbye! Turn around and roll over, roll over, snow dog. Sing a song with your sweet voice. I know you've been a good little girl. Good girl! Come and join us for a new adventure. Lots of fun, lots of walks. Won't you come into our Siberian world? Gone to the snow dogs.