re: Dog with the twisted stomach, aka the "smurf hat"

It's called bloat and it is real. I saved my dogs life while being present when she had the early signs of an episode of it and I brought her to the vet then the ER.

It's a serious issue.

It's like colic in horses. Definitely a real and life threatening thing.

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Who wants to put an oven pan down twice a day?

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Thank you!!

That was my reaction as well.

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google search: dog bowl eat slow -- you'll find all those bowls designed for this

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I have a slo bowl for both of my dogs because they eat too fast. They went from less than 1 minute to about 7 minutes. Since they have gotten used to it they are now down to around 4 minutes. They were not having any issues yet, but I feel like it was a good precautionary.



Slo Bowl

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Unless your dog is just inhaling its food

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Consider the Weimaraner.

we don't know for sure why some dogs develop bloat which in most cases in medicine means its multifactorial and there is likely some genetic basis too. It's pretty clear that fast eating isn't the only issue.

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It's pretty clear that fast eating isn't the only issue.

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But slowing down the eating has to help (or at least not hurt), right?

I have had dogs in the field that experienced this and had to be mede'vaced emergently so I know it is a real issue. FWIW, USSOCOM considers it serious enough that all dogs are now stapled prophylactically when they are brought into service.

IMO, for the two cases I treated back to back (neither was stapled), the factors were exertion, followed by rapid intake of food and water followed by being kenneled. Contrary to popular opinion regarding them running around on a full gut, I think the laying down and rolling over common when kenneled is the cause.

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I'm puzzled at how a species as successful as dogs could have forgotten to naturally select for a stomach that wouldn't, you know, tie itself in a knot.

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Well in the wild they probably didn't constantly eat big meals like they do domestically. That has a lot to do with it. They were scavengers.

Eating big meals then heavy physical exertion is a cause of bloat. We don't encourage our pup to do anything but be lazy for an hour after eating. Even if he wants to rough house, we just ignore him until he has time to digest.


ETA:

Not in a kennel ever though. He just walks around the house calmly after eating now.

Thanks guys for the data!

Dog had surgery at about 430 am. They had to remove spleen too because it I think was damaged in the torsion (blood supply issue maybe).

Anyway, it's a crazy thing! I appreciate the experts making an appearance.

As I read about this thing (I appreciate the key words I pulled from the posts above), I turns out the mortality from this business is quite high. Vet says recovery looking good so far.

As a couple of you pointed out, dog is having stomach staple to body cavity which hopefully prevents from happening again.

i have no idea what caused this. I will say that dog ate once a day very very quickly and that slow eating bowl posted above looks pretty smart. Thanks!