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Canine Bloat: Questions Answered

September 29th, 2010

Dog Food Dish received a couple of follow-up questions in response to Risk Factors and Canine Bloat from a few weeks ago. Ever the intrepid reporter, I dug around in the research and asked a veterinary expert from Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine for additional information and insights. You ask. We answer.

Canine bloat is also called gastric dilatation-volvulus or GVD, so don’t let the lingo below throw you.

Question: How do raised food/water bowls increase a dog’s risk of bloat?

PawsitivePuppy commented: Thank you very much for this extremely informative article! I do have a question, though, in regards to the raised bowls contributing to bloat. My question is: “How” does the use of raised bowls contribute to bloat (especially by 110%)? I have tried many times to find the answer to that question in the past and to no avail. At this point and time, I still continue to use the raised dishes for food/water. I would much appreciate any feedback, as I have yet to find any evidence that supports this. Thank you!

Answer: Researchers believe raised dog food bowls increase the amount of air large and giant breed dogs ingest while eating.

In a paper published November 15, 2000, in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, researchers said:

“In the present study … raising the feed bowl [was] not associated with a decreased risk of GVD in the multivariate analysis … In addition, in univariate analysis, many of the recommendations commonly made to prevent GVD, such as raising the food bowl … were associated with a significantly increased risk of GVD. Mostly likely, however, many of these factors were significant only because of confounding.”

The paper goes on to say, “However, even in the multivariate analysis, raising the food bowl appeared to significantly increase, and not decrease, the risk of GVD. One can question, therefore, whether in large breed and giant breed dogs raising the feed bowl might actually increase the amount of air ingested while eating.”

From what I can find in the scientific literature, no one has yet measured the actual amount of air large breed and giant breed dogs suck in while eating. But, they suspect that dogs may gulp MORE air, not LESS, when eating from raised food bowls.

Question: What about that bloat surgery (gastropexy)? Does it really work? Is it recommended?

Deborah Flick from BoulderDog commented: Did you come across anything in your research about surgically tacking the tummy down? It doesn’t prevent bloat, but it does (or does it?) prevent torsion. Is it recommended?

Answer: The tummy-tacking surgery (called gastropexy) is indeed recommended for dogs who have survived a bloat episode. Many veterinarians also recommend it for high-risk breeds (such as Great Danes).

Jerold S. Bell, DVM, from Tufts University, wrote the following in a paper presented at the Canine and Feline Breeding and Genetics Conference in 2003:

“Once normal anatomy is re-established, the most important aspect of bloat surgery is a gastropexy. The procedure ‘tacks’ or attaches the stomach wall to the body wall and prevents it from twisting in the future. Studies have shown that 76% of dogs that do not have a gastropexy will bloat again; more than half will bloat again within three months. Only 6 percent of dogs that have had a gastropexy have another bloat episode. Dogs that can be stabilized without surgery should have gastropexy performed as soon as possible … In breeds that are high risk, many experts recommend having a preventative gastropexy performed instead of waiting for an episode of bloat.”

Remember:

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Tags: bloat, bloat prevention, canine bloat, dog food, gastric dilatation-volvulus, GVD, risk factors for bloat
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | Comments Off

How Your Pet Food Choice Helps Others

September 22nd, 2010

Your pet’s veterinarian needs to know what dog food or what cat food you feed. Clearly, this information is important to your pet’s overall health and preventive care planning. BUT, there is another HUGE way that your pet food choice helps others.

Pet Food Questions

The newly released American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats suggests veterinarians include pet food questions in every exam done.

When veterinarians ask you questions about your pet and your pet food choices, it helps them build a bank of information about which dogs and cats do well on which foods.

Pet Food Choices

The vast array of dog food and cat food options means it’s nearly impossible for any one veterinarian to know everything about every food. And, because of regional differences, a pet doctor in California is likely to see more pets fed Food A, while a colleague in Tennessee might see a lot of Food B.

By always asking pet parents what dog food or what cat food they feed, veterinarians begin to associate names of certain pet foods with animals who are doing great. This gives them more experiential confidence upon which they can draw when people ask about certain brands of pet food.

Tony Buffington, DVM, PhD, a veterinarian and professor at The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center and board certified veterinary nutritionist, presented a webinar on the AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines to veterinary professionals in September 2010.

He explained, “When someone asks about [a particular pet food], you can say, ‘I know dogs who do well on that food, or I have concerns.’ … You might also say, ‘I’m not familiar with that food,’ but you can make recommendations based on experience, which is what they are paying for.”

Pet Food Advocates

You may think that choosing a good quality pet food affects just the furry family members at your house, but indeed … by sharing this information with your veterinarian, with your friends, and with all those in your social media network, you become a powerful pet food advocate.

Buffington went on to tell his colleagues that the greatest value in always asking for a diet history is that it creates broader pet food knowledge across many animals and over time.

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Tags: AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats, cat food, cat food recommendations, dog food, dog food recommendations, pet food, pet food choice, pet food questions, pet food recommendations, veterinarian, veterinary exam
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | 6 Comments »

Mistakes Even Smart Pet Parents Make

September 15th, 2010

So, we’ve already established that my habit of watering down dog food is a potentially dangerous thing to do since Ginko’s trim lab+greyhound build makes him prone to bloat. All this got me thinking about other mistakes even savvy pet parents might make.

I hope you will weigh in with you experiences, but here is a short list from my own life and that of my dog-loving friends:

Feeding dogs grapes or raisins

Keep in mind that for several years I was the lead writer for the American Animal Hospital Association, so you’d think a girl like me would know that for some dogs grapes or raisins can be scary toxic. But, for many years, I did not know this. I cannot tell you how many times I shared trail mix on a hike with my previous dogs. A nut here, some dried fruit there. We’ll never know, I guess, whether this habit led to kidney failure in my late Dalmatian, Penelope Grace, or whether she was just super sensitive because of an underlying condition.

What you can do to keep pets safe: Remind friends to safeguard grapes and raisins:

• Especially if they have small children in the house, where food stealing or food sharing may be more common
• Especially during the upcoming holiday season when there may be more raisins used in cooking or baking

Thinking tiny amounts of garlic are OK

I’m guilty of this too. I knew that you shouldn’t let dogs eat garlic, but I thought just a little here and there for flavor (like in homemade treats) was fine. It turns out, though, that there can be a cumulative affect, especially in red blood cell damage, if pets regularly eat small amounts of garlic over time … even if it doesn’t make them feel sick in the moment.

In my case, this meant feeding homemade treats with a little garlic in them regularly — weekly, if not daily. So, even though red blood cells get made by the body all the time, my consistent feeding of small amounts of garlic could have been consistently causing red blood cell damage. I began to worry about what the might mean for their health long term and stopped doing it.

What you can do to keep pets safe: Help spread the word, especially to your foodie or natural-remedy-loving friends that while garlic is indeed natural, it can have long-term consequences for pets if fed regularly. (Cats are particularly sensitive to garlic.)

Overlooking the danger of food containers

You can read the entire story of When Cereal Bags Attack, but essentially my border collie Lilly got one of those wax paper bags from a cereal box stuck on her head. She easily could have suffocated, if I hadn’t found her in time. It was especially scary for me because she recently had gotten trapped inside a garbage bag as well.

So, whether you have a highly food-motivated pet who might just ingest food packaging during a pantry raid or whether you have a super-smart pet whose adventures may lead to danger, it’s important to pay attention to product packaging as well.

I made this mistake recently, after doing a doggie ice cream product review. I ran off to check video quality, and the dogs ate the cardboard container it came in. I checked with the company, and they actually anticipated this and use a relatively safe form of cardboard, but still … I feared an intestinal blockage.

What you can do to keep pets safe: Remind yourself, your family, and your friends to remove and dispose of any packaging from pet treats and pet toys right away. We might not think the packaging is too enticing, but dogs with their super-sensitive noses do.

Everyone makes mistakes!

I hope you will share your mistakes or cautionary tales so that others can learn from them.

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Tags: bloat, canine bloat, garlic, grapes, pet product safety, raisins, toxic foods for pets
Posted in Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | 7 Comments »

Risk Factors and Canine Bloat

September 8th, 2010

I have NEVER had a dog develop bloat. With a big lab-greyhound mix in the house, with the high-risk bloat physique (deep, narrow chest), I’m so grateful. Yet, I recently learned that one of my dog food feeding habits may increase the risk for bloat by a whopping 320%. Yikes!

What is Bloat?

Canine bloat (also called gastric dilatation-volvulus or GVD) is a painful condition that can be deadly if not treated (sometimes with emergency surgery) in 1-2 hours.

• 25% of the time it’s caused by the stomach filling with gas, which essentially shuts off both ends and keeps all the air in.
• 75% of the time the stomach actually flips over, trapping the air/gas.

Sadly, 30% of dogs who develop bloat die or have to be euthanized. It it most common in large/giant breed dogs.

Water + Dog Food = Big Risk

I honestly don’t remember where I “learned” that putting water on a dog’s dry kibble before feeding was a good idea. I can only imagine that it’s something a veterinarian told me way back in 1990 when I got my first dog as an adult.

I always thought:

• It lowered the risk of choking.
• It slowed down eating so that they gulped less air.
• It make sure the dogs got enough water.
• It kept them from drinking a bunch of water afterward and plumping up the kibble already in the stomach, which seemed to me like a tummy-ache waiting to happen.

I’m wrong about most of that, it seems.

Here is how I found out:

Check out this off-the-cuff guest post Laura Bennett from Embrace Pet Insurance asked me to write, after she got a question about dog food and bloat. It began as a private email and became a blog post. I’m talking dog mom to dog mom and suggest my water thing, among other ideas. I found out via comments about this big bloat study. (Thanks to Christie Keith for the correction.)

Canine Bloat Research & Risk Factors

Researchers at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine wrote this paper, which summarizes risk and mitigating factors of canine bloat.  And, one key finding?

“Dogs fed dry foods containing citric acid and were moistened prior to feeding had a 320% higher risk for developing bloat.”

The study uncovered these bloat risk factors as well:

• Deep, narrow chest, especially in large and giant breed dogs
• Lean physique (While no one recommends keeping your dog fat on purpose, they simply found that the abdomen fat kept the stomach from flipping.)
• Age, especially in large breeds (risk goes up 20% each year after age 5)
• Having a first-degree relative (parent, sibling) who developed bloat (63% greater risk)
• Being fearful, nervous, aggressive or stressed (Some dogs get bloat after being kenneled or a long car ride.)
• Sex (slightly more male dogs developed bloat)

Diet-Related Risk Factors

Researchers also found that some diet-related choices were associated with bloat. These include:

• Feeding dry food only
• Feeding one big meal per day
• Feeding a dry food with fat in the first four ingredients (170% higher risk for bloat)

They also found: “Conversely, feeding a dry food containing a rendered meat-and-bone meal decreased risk by 53% in comparison to the overall risk for the dogs in the study. Mixing table food or canned food into dry food also decreased the risk of bloat.”

The Raised Bowl Thing

I’m sure you’ve heard, seen, or even used raised food and water bowls (again, especially for big dogs). The idea is that these tools keep dogs from gulping as much air as they eat or drink.

Wrong again.

The study showed that higher food and water bowls “actually increased risk by 110%.”

No Correlations

While I still think it’s a good idea NOT to let dogs run around too much right after they eat … if for no other reason than to avoid them barfing, the researchers found NO correlations to these theories about bloat risk factors:

• Exercise before or after eating (Most dogs bloat in the middle of the night with an empty stomach, full of gas.)
• Vaccinations
• Brand of dog food consumed
• Timing or volume of water intake before or after eating

More Changes @ Our House

So, we’ve already discussed the results of dog food changes at my house. I’ve already switched kibble once, then twice when my eldest dog showed weird food intolerance symptoms.

And, now … I have to break the habit of putting water on their food?

I suppose if I added a little canned food instead of water, that would cover me.

All this makes me wonder … What other mistakes do even smart pet parents make? That may just be next week’s topic, if you’d like to add your well-intentioned boo-boos in the comments below.

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Tags: bloat, canine bloat, dog food, gastric dilatation-volvulus, GVD, risk factors for bloat
Posted in Dog Health, K9 Health, K9 Nutrition | 11 Comments »

Weird Symptoms: Pet Food Allergies

September 1st, 2010

After the dog food I had been feeding my two dogs scored an F on K9Cuisine.com’s Dog Food Rating Tool, I found another / new line of food from the same maker that scored an A+. As I mentioned in the post Dog Food Rating Tool – Explained, everything seemed terrific … until it wasn’t.

Dog Days of Summer: A Whole New Meaning

July was a rough month at my house with veterinary bills totaling more than all our other monthly bills combined. Ginko’s third knee surgery in 10 years cost us FOUR times the initial estimate.

He is mostly recovered now, after two major rounds of antibiotics to deal with the massive infection they found tunneling its way through his right knee.

Ginko was none to happy to wear the collar that kept him from licking his surgery leg, after last month's knee surgery.

But, in the process of healing, Ginko suddenly developed an unquenchable thirst, which of course led to lots of peeing and very little sleep for anyone at our house.

He would literally stand at the empty water bowl and CRY, after having just slurped down the entire thing.

Weird Symptoms: Pet Food Allergies

During one of his post-op appointments, where they drew blood samples and did some urinalysis (and found nothing of concern), our veterinarian concluded that the change in dog food was to blame.

How’d she know?

Oddly enough, she had recently switched her dogs to the exact same food, and they too had become “water mongers.”

Other Possible Causes

Now, with Ginko having just come through a tough 2+-hour surgery, and with the massive antibiotics he was taking, it was easy to think that perhaps those things had something to do with his sudden water issues.

Dog Food Switch: Take 2

But, just to be sure, we switched him from the salmon and sweet potato formula to the turkey and sweet potato formula.

My worried, skeptical husband really wanted to switch Ginko back to the old food … F grade or not, but I convinced him to that we’d just try another protein source in the A+ line instead.

He begrudgingly agreed, saying, “Let’s hope it isn’t the sweet potato that’s the problem.”

Problem Solved

After just one week, Ginko’s thirst issues vanished. He is completely normal again.

I’m not saying that Ginko is “allergic” to the salmon, but I believe there is some dog food intolerance or dog food sensitivity there. I cannot imagine that all that thirst and drinking and peeing doesn’t wear a dog down, so I’m glad we switched, and I’m glad he is doing better.

While we could have just returned what was left of the salmon food, I’ve continued to feed it to Lilly (my border collie, the canine heroine of our blog Champion of My Heart) … because she is doing great on the new food. I’ll just switch her over to the turkey when we run out of salmon.

This experience makes me VERY leery of moving them to a dog food rotation schedule … because, frankly, my budget can’t take many more expensive veterinary scares right now.

Trading Ills

Alas, the salmon-based food virtually made Ginko’s “gas” problem disappear, so now that he is back on the turkey (grain-free, gluten-free) formula … the gas has returned.

I’m also a bit stumped that we haven’t seen a great reduction in stool quantity from either dog.

Because Ginko was on strict house rest during his recovery, I supervised every trip to the dog pen for him to potty for several weeks, and I’ve got to say … what’s coming out the other end is NOT less than it was on the old food.

So, either the old food wasn’t all that bad, in terms of fillers, or there is a goodly amount of sweet potatoes, peas and such in the new food.

It’s been a long, long time since I fed so-called “grocery store” brands. Perhaps I just don’t remember stool quantities from the old days.

What Weird Symptoms?

So, beyond the typical symptoms veterinarians see in dogs with food allergies, what crazy things have you seen when a food didn’t agree with your pet?

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Tags: allergy symptoms, animal protein, dog, dog allergies, dog food, dog food allergies, Dog Food Dish, food sensitivity, hydrolysate, K9Cuisine.com, novel protein
Posted in Dog Allergies, K9 Nutrition | 14 Comments »