Bloat

I'd have to describe deep chested more or less as big chested,,,not wide from side to side, but rather big from front to back.....gee,,, does that make sense??  Put it this way, I tried to buy Bubblegum a jacket or sweatshirt for last winter,,, and her chest is so big that I couldn't  really find anything to fit well over it.. I would have to get her something that really stretches.

But I've read conflicting things about the correlation of deep chested dogs and bloat.
Some say there is no connection, and some say that it makes a dog more succeptible to getting bloat.
If the latter is the case, Ella could be more proned to getting it by your definition of deep chested.
I can never find anything that fits her chest.
I have to order from places that take chest size into consideration. And there aren't MANY of those companies floating around.

I have a map with routes to all the ER clinics posted up on my fridge. I've driven to them all just to make sure I could find them in a blind panic. If one of my dogs ever showed any symptoms of bloat (none so far cross fingers) I'd toss that dog in the car and drive as fast as I could to nearest ER. Wouldn't even bother with our regular vet or a bloat kit.
I try hard to "innoculate" my dogs against stress- we never follow a "set" schedule, I take them to weird and scary places as often as possible, they never get meals of nothing but dry kibble. But some dogs just bloat anyway.

Tht is such a scarey thing to happen.  I saw on one being operated on on ER Vets on Anoimal Planet a coupel of times.  I remember seeing the BLACK intestine where it had died from lack of blood.  I looked up what I could find, and darn if most of it doesn't contridict each other. 

I think a lot of bloat victims are due to stress, maybe a bit of a yeast overgrowth in their gut-which may make it hard for them to release excess gas, stress at feeding time etc.
My Rottie Athena was bloating at one point. I realized at that time it was due to stress (new house, kennel) and perhaps the Innova dog food I was feeding. To this day if I feed her Innova she bloats. She has never torsioned (flipped), the Vet said a few more episodes not caught in time as I have done could end up in torsion. I keep Nux Vomica on hand for any signs of bloating, I give these to here immediately and it helps relieve the gas. Or, my Sister burps her Newfs[]

I am lucky my Sister has emergency dog first aid training & she also worked as a lifeguard when younger then went on to be on the Royal Life Saving of Canada Committee, and working with dogs for over 21 years professionally and 15 years prior to that as handler, kennel attendant etc.. She has been in situations where she has had to save a human life and a few occasions where she had to save a dog.  At a dog show she and another breeder had to insert a tube down a bloating dogs throat...I think it was a situation of not enough time to get to a vet.  She also knows where to puncture a hole and is not squeemish like I would be[]   My Sister & I share a house, so she is there in case of an emergency.  Which I am grateful. Also, where she is a groomer she should know what to do in an emergency which is the why she took all these extra courses[]  Now, she is under a Vet clinic, so, in case of emergency unless after hours she has Vets at her disposal. 
 
Just to add, I think a lot of bloat is genetic as well.  If a dog has a tendancy to bloat they should not be bred. 
 
A friend of mine had  a Newf that bloated twice, one it flipped one way the breeder was able to insert a tube to release gas on the way to the vet....that in itself may have saved the dogs life.  The Newf's stomach was stapled on one side...then a few years later her bloated and torsioned the other way and flipped.  Once again the breeder living only up the road was able to save the dog on the way to the Vet.  The Newf was under some stress (I think) and I don't think the breeder used him for breeding due to his bloating.  He did finish his championship in Canada & States. 

Okay, so this is the second time I saw this,,,what Nux Vomica?  And what do you do with it and how?  
I have simethicone,,,pure and in liquid form, I and bought an eye dropper to use it in case of trouble. It stays in my fridge. It was recommended on a website where the writer said her dog used to bloat a lot.  Maybe it would buy some time in emergency!
I think the thing that bothers me about this Dane that died last saturday is they did pretty much catch it right away, brought them over to our vet right away. She stabilized him and treated him,,,and then they took him to ER and they said it was too late to do surgery or anything.  THAT bothers me although I have to wonder exactly what the story was on that.

That is strange Dilon[] funny that they stabilized him then the other vet couldn't do anything.  With the Newf's they were stabilized by the breeder then a local vet then taken to another province for the surgery.
 
Nux Vomica is a homeopathic treatment that was highly recommended by my holistic vet when Athena started bloating.  He told me to give her 5 pellets the first sign of drooling/discomfort.  I get it pretty cheap at the local natural food store.  I just give 5 pellets (30c) at the first sign, if she continues ot show discomfort after 15 minutes I give her 5 more.

Thanks for this thread cause it made me more aware and scared of my dogs developing bloat.  I seem to do what is suggested to help prevent, less stress, raised food/water, helping to pass gas after a meal.  I was automatically doing all these things after my very first Dane was diagnosed with megaesophagus.  So far with 4 Danes in my history none have experienced bloat.  There is a rescue group out here that doesn't adopt their Danes unless you agree to do the stomach stample.  Most recently one of my Danes had surgery to remove polyps on her chest.  One had grown thumb size and was always bleeding from irratations.  Since this was a big surgery I asked my vet about the stomach staple and she did not recommend it and said a very low percentage of Danes do develop the condition.  Do any of you have experience with the stapling procedure?

Since this was a big surgery I asked my vet about the stomach staple and she did not recommend it and said a very low percentage of Danes do develop the condition.  Do any of you have experience with the stapling procedure?

 
You know,,,I'm not sure!  I do know that some vets recommend doing the stapling when they get spayed or neutered,,,, I know that the Dane down the street from me named Sadie had it done when she was spayed. However, I also read that sometimes when they have this done and bloat up, that it rips out and causes even more problems.  So I don't know!   I never thought to have it done when Bubblegum was spayed,,, I do wish I had asked her vet at that time,,,it was a different one than the one we go to.
I also read quite a few times that dogs that bloat seem to run in families. I am hoping that is true because Bubbys breeder told me that she never had a Dane that bloated.   
I guess all we can do is do what we can to help our dogs to not have too much stress, and do things that are said to help prevent bloat and mainly pray for the best!!!
 

 Dyan, I guess if I owned a Dane I'd be as worried as you are. We do feed Jessie smaller meals 2 to 3 times a day and make sure that she doesn't run for an hour after eating but other than that I don't worry much about it. It's obvious you love Bubby very much; I hope the information others share on this thread helps to ease your mind somewhat.

It's obvious you love Bubby very much;

 
I sure do!!!  

The below pictures are 8 years old and I dug them out for a cropping thread.  The pictures sure did remind me of how great it was to have puppies in the house.  Most of all the pictures put a smile on my face.  Hope it does the same for you.

Thanks for the photos DPU,,, sure looks familiar,,,those giant legs and feet.  Are they from the same litter? They say many white Danes are blind or deaf, is your white one okay?  The Harl. sure reminds me of my Bubblegum,,, is that one blue and one brown eye? Bubby has one brown but the other is half blue and half brown.

Yes Blizzard and Drizzle are sisters.  The white Dane is named Blizzard and yes she is deaf, cross-eyed, and is a big girl coming in at 185lbs.  She is so lucky to be able to see two of every thing she loves and also the ability to tune things out she does not like.  She has an incredible mothering instinct and I think she takes more care of me than me of her.  She is more than okay.  Drizzle, the Harle comes in at 135 lbs and she is hyper.  She does have two different color eyes and has a merle color on top of her head.  She does the agility course and is also very muscled.  She puts the border collies to shame and no way can any dog take a frisbee away from her.  The two are at the opposite extreme ends of what a Dane's temperment should be.  Its been a lot fun with these two.

Just to add, my holistic Vet when I was going through the bloating problem with Athena also strongly advised to feed raw meat meals with slightly steamed/pureed veggies with the normal stuff like pureed whole free range eggs with shell for calcium, yogurt etc.
 
This seemed to help a lot, as she never gassed up on raw foods.