SCGSC Member Kathy Heschke from Brownwood, Texas suggested that we include an article about Canine Bloat in the June issue of The Hotline. That sounded like an especially good idea to me, because eight years ago a short article about Canine Bloat and its warning signs saved our Giant Schnauzer’s life.

On a beautiful Sunday morning in August 1995, we were out house hunting with our Giant Schnauzer Anna in the back seat of a tiny rental car. She just couldn’t get comfortable, wouldn’t lie down and looked miserable in general. So, we stopped the car, thinking she might need to stretch her legs, but she looked even more miserable.

Ironically, just a few weeks earlier I had read an article entitled “The Warning Signs for Canine Bloat”. One look at our girl, pacing around in misery on the end of her leash, told me all I needed to know. We jumped back in the car and headed home so we could call our vet.

Thankfully the vet on call did answer the phone, but she tried to tell me it was probably just “indigestion” and that I should “wait and see”. She also reminded me that there would be an extra $50 charge if she had to come in on a Sunday.

Thankfully, because I had read that article and remembered the warning signs, I was able to reel off Anna’s symptoms to the vet. I also told her that I would feel pretty awful if my dog died because I was too cheap to pay the extra $50 fee!

So, we raced to the vet clinic. Anna was x-rayed and indeed her stomach was twisted. The vet felt terrible of course. She gave us the option of taking Anna up to the University of Pennsylvania Vet School because they had such a high success rate with bloat surgery, or calling in the most experienced vet on their staff. We opted for Pennsylvania. The vet called the clinic and got instructions on what to do to keep Anna stable while we drove the two hours to Philadelphia.

The vet sewed an IV into Anna’s leg. (Brave girl that Anna was, she never flinched.) Then the vet inserted a tube into Anna’s stomach, via her mouth. We carried Anna out to the car, where she and I were in the back seat with her head in my lap. My job was to keep the tube down and the drip bottle higher than Anna. My husband Jay’s job was to get us to the Vet School.

Neither task was easy: holding an IV bottle up for two hours and keeping a tube down was numbing to say the least. My left arm went to sleep halfway there. Jay, needless to say, was driving like a madman through the Sunday afternoon beach traffic. Traffic was at a standstill, so he finally took to the shoulder. People could see me holding the IV bottle, so they just waved us on and wished us good luck. We kept hoping a police car would stop us so that we could ask for their help, but there was no such luck. However, we did make it to the clinic in record time anyway.

The emergency team was waiting for us, and they said they had never seen a dog arrive in such good condition almost three hours after the emergency call came into their clinic. They successfully tacked her stomach during the surgery, and she recovered completely. The IV and the tube, the successful surgery and post-operative care had saved her life—as well as the article I read with the list of the warning signs of bloat.

Today, in this computer age, people are more likely to look something up on the Internet than they are to run across it in a magazine. So I typed Canine Bloat into Google and was met with an array of possible web sites with information about the condition. Cybercanine.com provided an easy to understand discussion of the condition with answers to common questions such as: What is Canine Bloat? What breeds are prone to Bloat? What may cause Bloat?

Most importantly, the article included a list of The Warning Signs of Bloat or Canine Gastric Dilatation:

• Major anxiety
• Pacing
• Abdominal swelling
• Gagging
• Whining
• Heavy salivating
• Abnormal panting
• Shallow breathing
• Restlessness
• Excessive heartbeat
• Weak pulse with off colored (blue, dark red, white) gums

The article noted than in the early stages of bloat, the dog will show some of the symptoms and will not be interested in food or water. Within an hour, the dog’s mid-section will begin to swell due to the accumulation of gas in the stomach. Then the dog will begin to pant heavily and breathing becomes rapid and shallow. The dog may attempt to gag or vomit, but it is always unproductive.

Since deep-chested, large or extra large dogs between the ages of 4 to 10 are more prone to bloat than other types of dogs, and Giant Schnauzers are deep-chested, large dogs, we Giant Schnauzer owners should be on the alert. It is imperative that you contact your veterinarian IMMEDIATELY if you feel your dog may be showing symptoms of Canine Bloat. According to the article, the condition is rapidly fatal in dogs, causing shock and coma.

The April 2003 issue of the AKC Gazette included an interesting article by Jerold S. Bell, DVM entitled Risk Factors for Canine Bloat (page 26). According to Dr. Bell, “Canine Bloat, or gastric dilatation-volvulus (GDV) is the number one cause of death for several large and giant breeds. If this painful disorder is not treated within one to two hours, it is life-threatening.”

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Special thanks to Kathy Heschke for suggesting an article about Bloat. Who knows? It may save your dog’s life.