[FirebreathingDober]

How common is it in dobes? I lost my male, my 5 yr old baby, recently to it. The vet called it the curse of the big chested dogs. Dobes, Danes etc. I think this is something we need more information on. The vet told me that it is usually caused by a dog that wolfs down or bolts down their food.. That is SOOO far from Zeus.. he would pick up a piece at a time and go lay down with it. It would take him a couple of days to eat a dish of food! He was muscular, healthy and shiney. He bloated overnight and I awoke and found him at 3 in the morning, by the time we go to the vet it was too late. :sadcry:
Also while on the subject of food, sort of, how many feed with raised dishes? Does anyone see a difference?
Bobbie

 

[joce]

The newest study said raised dishes are bad. I think it really runs in the family too. I know someone that bred danes nad it was a problem with a group of dogs they kept running into. She couldn't convince them not to breed.

I just think feeding no corn, no haevy activity around meals,and knowing if it runs in the dogs family are good things to know/do.

 

[CoAl-s-Mom]

I'm so sorry you lost your boy.
Here is a link to the Purdue study on bloat.
http://www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/bloat.htm

And her is a link to someone that basically poo poos the whole study.
http://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/on_my_soap_box_purdue_bloat_study.htm

 

[Lexus]

Many sorries for your loss...hurts no matter how long it's been.....

 

[Gunner]

How common is it in dobes? I lost my male, my 5 yr old baby, recently to it. The vet called it the curse of the big chested dogs. Dobes, Danes etc. I think this is something we need more information on. The vet told me that it is usually caused by a dog that wolfs down or bolts down their food.. That is SOOO far from Zeus.. he would pick up a piece at a time and go lay down with it. It would take him a couple of days to eat a dish of food! He was muscular, healthy and shiney. He bloated overnight and I awoke and found him at 3 in the morning, by the time we go to the vet it was too late. :sadcry:
Also while on the subject of food, sort of, how many feed with raised dishes? Does anyone see a difference?
Bobbie

i read they said raised dishes were better then they changed and started saying they werent so idk, hope it doesnt happen to me, sprry about ur Dobe R.IP.

 

[Gracie's_Mom]

I'm sorry to hear about your dobe! :sadcry:

When we got Gracie they told us to put some water in her food, they said it would slow her down when she eats. As soon as she would see food it was gone. They also said not to let her outside for 30 minutes before and after she ate. I made her stay in the house for 1 hour before and after. If she was doing a lot of excercise. Now Gracie takes a good 10 minutes to eat a bowl of food. Where as last year it took her 2 minutes!

Also I heard raised dishes are better for them. I heard that the ones on the floor will mess up their neck later in life.


I just heard these things, so if I can get some research done I will.

 

[joce]

I heard that water in the food was bad too. It all seems to contradict what another study says though. SO if you find something that works stick to it. I think the main thing in all of them is a non corn/filler based diet though. I have always been so scared of bloat.

 

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

Mine are fed with a raised dish, I used to feed them without a raised dish and it looked kind of uncomfortable for them to bend down so far just to eat, plus they sounded like they were gulping in a bunch of air. Ever since I raied the dishes I have no problems. Also, the lady I get my Dobes from rescues and has has been breeding Dobies for 30+ years and has only had one pass away of bloat, she says that some ways to prevent it are to keep both food and water dishes raised and to add some water to the food if you feed kibble, jsut enough water so that the kibbles barely float. I hope all of that made sense....


Joce, where did you hear that water and raised dishes were bad? Every person I talk to with large to giant breeds say those 2 things are the best you can do for the dog.....

 

[joce]

I read it in the paper and I saw it somewhere on the doberman pincher discussion forum,along with some others too. I can't remember where I heard about the water in the food though. I'm pretty sure it was the same study I read in the paper. I'll have to try to look it up tommorow.


I found some articles looking it up with yahoo. I cna't find the original one from my paper though. Just put bloat raised dish into the search engine and half of them said good,half bad. Seems the newest studys say bad. And apparently you add water to food if it swells a lot because it will not swell inside the dog then. The problem probally is that it still doesn't swell untill its in teh dogs gutt. I'll try more tommorow to find the article though.

 

[micdobe]

Someone, I think it was Coalsmom, already poste the link to the Purdue study on this thread. Go to the link and read it. The PUrdue study lasted for five years and studied over a thousand dogs. They were trying to find the cause/s of bloat. They haven't so far. But what they did find were statistics of how likely bloat was to happen under certain conditions. They found that feeding from raised dishes increased the risk of bloating by about 200%. They were surprised, so they redefined their search criteria to remove other possible factors, like had the dogs involved bloated before, how old they were, etc, and after they did that, they still came up with 110% more likely to bloat when fed from raised bowls than when fed on the floor. They don't know why that is so, but those are the statistics.

On the other side of the coin, while a lot of people "say" raised feeding is a bloat preventive, I've never seen one scientific study to back it up. It's just something that has become part of the conventional wisdom apparently, just like a lot of people "say" Dobermans will turn on their owners.

25 years ago, when I had my first two Dobermans, no one "said" raised feeding prevented bloat. But I did read some articles that said it was better for the dogs' posture to feed elevated. So for awhile I fed them on the kitchen chairs. I quit because they kept pushing the bowls onto the floor and spilling the food. What a mess.

When my dogs died, I was away from the Doberman world for awhile, didn't read any magazines or anything. When I got a new puppy and started reading the magazines again and then got on the internet, "everybody" was "saying" that feeding raised prevented bloat. It was a surprise to me, because I still remembered when it was supposed to only be good for posture. Every time somebody tells me feeding raised is a bloat preventive I ask them where is the proof, the study, that shows this is so. They never have one, they just "heard" that it was good. So I'm going with the Purdue study. I was feeding on the floor anyway, so it means I don't have to change.

 

[whiteandblue]

Sorry to hear about your dobe... ive been reading about this alot... but all this info sure helps me out alot... and my dobes and i send out deepest regards and love to you... hugs

 

[morrmar]

My daughter and soon to be son-in-law dodged a bullet last night. Their Rottie started dry heaving when they were at the lake for July 4th. To make a very long story short, they got Max to the emergency vet in time, did surgery and everything looks good this afternoon. Unfortunately, they are also $3000 USD lighter in the wallet. They had a Golden Retriever mix die of bloat/GDV last year as well. She mentioned that the vet said something about being able to do a stapling procedure at the same time as spaying that would prevent this horrible thing from happening. Has anyone heard of this procedure before?

 

[micdobe]

It's called a gastropexy. It surgically attaches the stomach to the abdominal wall. The dog can still bloat, but the surgery makes it much less likely that the stomach will flip, which is the really dangerous part.

 

[Fitzmar Dobermans]

My daughter and soon to be son-in-law dodged a bullet last night. Their Rottie started dry heaving when they were at the lake for July 4th. To make a very long story short, they got Max to the emergency vet in time, did surgery and everything looks good this afternoon. Unfortunately, they are also $3000 USD lighter in the wallet. They had a Golden Retriever mix die of bloat/GDV last year as well. She mentioned that the vet said something about being able to do a stapling procedure at the same time as spaying that would prevent this horrible thing from happening. Has anyone heard of this procedure before?

Yes, when my Velma was spayed last year, I asked for and had it done. The incision was longer and the recovery time was a little longer also. The extra cost was minimal - maybe $50 more? I had to feed her more frequent and smaller meals for a few weeks. She was totally back to normal quickly. I lost my first Doberman to bloat at age 11.

 

[morrmar]

Thanks for the info micdobe and velmadobe. The extra cost seems minimal for a potential lifesaving procedure. We have been _so_ lucky with the health of our dogs. Other than routine vet visits and spay/neuter fees, we haven't had anything happen to our dogs. Unfortunately, we've lost a few to encounters with bears/mountain lions, one to a dog lab kidnapper and a couple to trigger happy neighbors. Since this is something I can potentially prevent, I'm going to have it done at the same time Karma is spayed.

Again, thanks for the info.

 

[JavasMom]

Thanx for giving me something new to think about! Thought raised dishes were something cosmetic more for the owners than for the dogs. I find if I mix brown rice and a veg into her kibble it slows down the process - otherwise it's not hard to see when the expression 'wolfing down food' came from!

Re: Morrmar's post - how could someone decide to shoot their neighbor's pet?? Hate to think what they'd do if your teens were having a rowdy house party....

 

[morrmar]

"Re: Morrmar's post - how could someone decide to shoot their neighbor's pet?? Hate to think what they'd do if your teens were having a rowdy house party...."

I live in a very rural, isolated area (my nearest neighbor is over a mile away) and was young and foolish enough to leave my dogs outside. One got into a chicken coop and another just wouldn't leave calves alone. My neighbors did what they felt they had to do and my ignorance cost my dogs their lives.

I am no longer young and foolish, or ignorant. My dogs and cats stay inside all the time now.