Coping With Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus Syndrome

My healthy and beautiful 7 year old german shepherd bitch jessy,suffered bloat with twisted stomach for the first time three weeks ago 6th october 2008 straight after rushing her feed down,she swelled up like a balloon,I new straight away that it was serious and rushed her straight to my vets,(tom leonard and brothers whitchurch shropshire UK )they operated on her within 10 mins of her arrival out of practice hours.

steve (toms brother) was already there caring for a cat that had been brought in,lucky me!! he tried and tried to get a drip into jessy as she was in shock with a very poor blood flow,I was ready to put her down as she must of been in agony,she had a very slow pulse but steve kept on trying,eventually he got the drip in and her pulse improoved,steve rang tom he arrived within 5 mins they operated and kept her in overnight, she came home the next morning, and three weeks later she is ok,antibiotics id food recurrent trips to the vet and checkup calls from them,she still has some fluid underneath and some weight loss but otherwise jessy is on the mend,she had her stomach stapled otherwise she would of died.

I am very lucky and so is jessy to have the best vets in the country,so please if you have a german shepherd or any other large breed dog please feed small and often around three feeds aday,never breed off them if they have had this problem and remember if they swell up like a balloon straight or soon after feeding or at any time and try to vomit but nothing comes up get them straight to the vets no ifs or buts straight away,this cost me over 1000 pounds (well worth it) and has been a valuable lesson for myself (having had german shepherds for over 25 years) fingers crossed jessy continues to make a full recovery,without tom and steve and the nurse(my special superman vets as I like to call them) jessy would of been in doggy heaven now,a big major warning to you all…..lynne whitchurch shropshire UK