vb3

Layla woke me up at around 1 am hacking and coughing, pacing around the house trying to eat whatever rubbish she could find on the floor. She was drooling excessively and wouldn't settle down. Her stomach seemed a bit firmer than usual and we couldn't figure out if she nabbed something off the table or ate too much chewbone or what, so off to the emergency vet we went. A couple hundred bucks and a few hours later, the vet couldn't tell if there was anything in her stomach except lots of dog kibble. We opted to watch her ourselves instead of going for a barium study. She came home and slept off the anasthesia, and woke up this morning seeming much better. She also managed to poop, drink and eat without any problems, so things seem to be moving normally. Moral of the story? I'll gripe about it, but lost sleep and money is worth peace of mind.

SophieB

Poor Layla! Some of her symptoms sound very much like bloat... when dogs become very agitated, can't settle... they pace around the room and bring up a lot of drool/foamy liquid. The stomach goes quite tight like a drum and sounds hollow if tapped. It can't be what Layla had or the vet would have known and carried out an emergency operation because their blood supply can get cut off where the stomach torsions/twists.

I was told many years ago to be careful not to feed my hounds for at least an hour or more after exercising and not to exercise them for an hour or two after feeding as it can cause bloat (more common in long dogs or deep chested dogs) and I once met an elderly Basset owner who had no idea about bloat until she lost a Basset with it and she said she always walked him straight after feeding him, which is not the thing to do!

I hope Layla is OK now.

vb3

Yeah she is fine now. Bloat was the first thing on my mind but the vet said she saw no evidence of it at all, otherwise I wouldn't have brought her home. She thought there might have been something in the pyloric region of the stomach blocking digestion but couldn't tell from the x-rays. I checked the house for all rawhide/chewbones that we had given them thinking she may have swallowed the knuckle end of a rawhide but everything was where it should have been. She's fine now, so I'm not sure what it was.

hig4s

We had mysterious issues with our previous basset we think were because of pig ears.. So we don't give our two current bassets any raw hide or pig ears. try not to give them anything they can half chew and swallow that might be hard to digest.

FloppyToby

I'm glad layla is ok!

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A basset is an asset!

smitte21

Wow what a scary night... yeah I agree sounds almost like bloat to me too. Glad to hear she's on the mend and doing fine now.

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vb3

Layla is our little piglet. She will eat her kibble and then Rosco's as well if he doesn't eat his own. I wonder if she was underfed before we adopted her. The other night she had eaten Rosco's food without us realizing it until the end, so she had about 4 cups of food in her belly. I think she just overate.

smitte21

Ah... yeah that would do it. You may want to separate them when feeding them in the future as you can see she's a gulper already and you don't want her to end up bloating on you. It's definately a scary thing.

Have you tried feeding her twice or three times a day? That can also lessen the chance of bloat. We feed ours in the morning and in the evening since my inlaws lost one of their girls to bloat many years ago. It was a sad day and she was a wonderful basset... definately a tough loss and a lessen learned the hard way.

__________________
Proud owner handler of AKC/UKC Ch. Olde Fashion Agent 99, CGC, TDInc. and Beauregard Smith, CGC

www.savybassets.net

mikiesgirl

Our older resecue basset Chuck had an incident of bloat on April 1. He was throwing up piles of foam about 2 hours after dinner, and his stomach was very inflated. We watched him throw up and pace round the room for about 20 min and took him to the emergency vet, as that was on a Sunday evening. The vet took the first set of x-ray, and told us that she didn't see any sign of bloat. They passed a tube down Chuck's throat and was able to retrive a small amount of food, and they also relieved the gas in his stomach. We left the hospital at 10pm, and Chuck had to stay behind for furthur observation, as they could not determine the cause of his symptoms. At 1 am, the vet called us and let us know that they had to relief the gas two more times since we left, and they suggested surgery to explore what's going on in this stomach. The surgery revealed that Chuck indeed did have bloat. His stomach was twisted in the opposite direction that they would normally see, which was why the x-ray did not show the torsion.

We have always feed our two basset boys twice a day with one of food each time. The vet suggested that too much water consumption right after meal could be a cause that. Since then, we have stopped giving them water one hour before and after the meal. We also would not let me play for at least an hour after chow time.

Bloat was very scary. Chuck has been a verterian of surgeries, however, this is the worst he's suffered. It took him a full week to recover from the surgery.

vb3

Yeah we are usually pretty good about watching the two of them when we feed them, this was just one of those ocassions where it slipped by us. We feed them half a 13 oz can of moist food in the morning each and then around 1 1/2-2 cups of dry food in the evening. Water is available pretty much all day for them, but Layla sucks it down when she goes for a drink (she almost goes swimming - shoves her nose in nearly up to her eyes to drink and then lets most of it come pouring back out when she's done). I haven't ever monitored their activity level after a meal but am thinking about crating them for an hour after each meal to lessen the chances of bloating. Any other suggestions?