Paws, Reflect & Heal with Dr. Randy

STOP Your Dog From Getting Deadly Bloat (GDV)

• Dr. Randy Pet Vet • Episode 45

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0:00 | 7:21

Pet parents of Golden Retrievers, Poodles, and other large, deep-chested dogs must understand the threat of stomach bloat (GDV), a life-threatening condition where the stomach fills with gas and twists. Dr. Randy Aronson shares a dramatic personal story from his veterinary internship to underscore the urgency of this condition. He breaks down the alarming mechanics of bloat, explaining how fermenting kibble and strenuous exercise after meals put your dog at extreme risk.

Dr. Randy provides the vital, actionable steps you can take to prevent bloat, including managing your dog’s activity after eating and reducing reliance on dry kibble. Crucially, he and co-host Olivia Sacci discuss the ultimate preventative measure: the gastropexy—a surgical procedure that "tacks" the stomach to the abdominal wall to ensure it can never twist. Learn why this procedure, often performed during spay or neuter surgery, is a critical consideration for conscientious large-breed dog owners seeking to mitigate this silent killer.

#DogBloat #GDV #LargeDogHealth

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey guys, it's Dr. Randy with Pause Reflect and Heal, and my co-host and friend Olivia from the University of Arizona Vet School.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi guys, good to be here again. Happy New Year.

SPEAKER_00:

Happy New Year. We have a question from Ross.

SPEAKER_02:

Perfect. So Ross is from Houston, Texas, and he says a friend of mine recently lost his dog to something called stomach bloat. It was a large black standard poodle, about seven years old. He's got a five-year-old golden retriever, and he's wondering if he should be concerned about stomach bloat. Can you explain what it is, why a dog might get that, and what to do to avoid it or treat it once it happens?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Great question. Great question. Do you have have you studied this yet?

SPEAKER_02:

I have not. I think I've I think I've heard about it though. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you're starting like some surgery stuff and then musculoskeletal. You'll learn a little bit about this. But um I I like to tell a little story about Bloat real quickly that goes with this. So I did an internship at the University of Pennsylvania rotating through medicine and surgery when I was um before the light bulb was invented. Um and the University of Ours, the University of Pennsylvania student who does an internship, which was me, gets to work the first shift of emergency, which is eight at night to eight, supposedly eight in the morning, but you're never out of there at eight in the morning.

SPEAKER_02:

That sounds like my dream. I don't want to be in emergency.

SPEAKER_00:

It's no, it's crazy. And it's Philadelphia. So there are 50 to 60,000 cases a year. So it is busy from eight o'clock to eight in the morning. And so when I started that, I was thinking, oh, this is gonna be great. You know, we have all these wonderful people. We have a surgeon involved, we have an internist involved, we have radiologists. Well, they they all sleep, they're not involved at all. So the intern, who was me, gets to see the case. First night, bloat. And I'm we're gonna explain this and I'll tell you how crazy this is.

SPEAKER_02:

So it sounds like Ross has brought you flashbacks of that time.

SPEAKER_00:

Ross, thank you so much. And I have to tell you, for 10 nights in a row, I had a bloat every single night. To the point where after the third night, the surgeon said to me, Randy, just go in and do the surgery, please, because I already had it down and he knew that I could handle it. But that was my experience with bloat. So let's answer Ross's question now that I get off that question.

SPEAKER_02:

So, what is bloat? Let's start there.

SPEAKER_00:

Very, very good. So, bloat is a situation where the stomach in a dog uh starts to fill up with gas. It's actually from fermenting of typically the kibble dog foods, which you know you and I have talked about trying to get less and less of. And what happens is if you can picture a Tootsie roll, so the esophagus on one end and the umodanum or the small intestine on the other end, twit the stomach twists, but they stay in place. So when you look at a Tootsie roll, you know how it's twisted on both ends? Well, the gas that is in the stomach doesn't have anywhere to go.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And so the stomach continues to get bigger, bigger, and bigger, hence the word bloat.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

The problem is with that is that as that gets bigger and bigger and you have those two areas twisted off, the blood supply to the stomach also gets terribly interrupted. And so the reason why we lose our dogs to bloat is that the blood flow gets to the point where it has nowhere to go. Uh you can get clots released from that, they can start getting toxic. And uh basically uh that's what ends up happening.

SPEAKER_02:

So I think I I haven't learned about this in school yet, but as you know, I was one of your technicians, and I feel like I've seen this before, but in large breed dogs is typically when it happens. So can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So it's typically as Ross had alluded to with his friends Poodle and his golden retriever, it's typically a large breed dog problem. Why? Because we have bred these dogs to have larger and larger chest areas, and so now the stomach has a lot more room to move. Got it. And these will cause this will set this up. So the situation is we basically talked about that um kibble, when it hits the stomach and there's water in there, will start to ferment. It and that's where the gas comes from. And also, it also happens in a situation where a dog is like just eaten and drank and gone outside and run.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So then the stomach has a chance to move in that abdomen area because of the larger chested dog, and will have more and more of a chance to twist.

SPEAKER_02:

To twist itself. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Got it. So the idea is one, in our big dogs, we don't want to feed them, have them drink, and then have them go right outside to play. Uh, I tell people, give them if you can, at least 30 minutes, sometimes longer before they get to do that. Two, as we've talked about in other podcasts, we try to limit the amount of dry food and do more and more frozen raw, freeze-dried raw to add to the protein levels, but also decrease the fermentable situation that can happen.

SPEAKER_02:

And then uh another question I have is there a surgical intervention that you can do kind of as a preventative measure? Yeah. Okay, could you talk about that as well?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So uh first of all, the surgery to correct the bloat is you have to oh uh obviously get into the abdomen right away. You have to relieve the gas distension and you have to untwist the stomach, and then you basically it's called tacking the stomach to the abdominal wall. So there's a procedure where you actually tack the stomach so it can't twist. Um, and that way you basically have prevented that from happening again in that dog. The question you asked is very good. So a lot of large breed dogs, surgeons will often do a preventative uh pexy, it's called, or tacking of that stomach so that it can't happen down the road. We're not always sure about what the long-term effects of that on the digestive system is and whatnot, but it seems to be handled pretty well and it doesn't seem to be a big problem. So in as as far as Ross goes, uh it may be worthwhile thinking about that in his golden retriever if it hasn't been spay or neutered, because it's usually done at that time.

SPEAKER_02:

And just kind of keeping them after they eat, after they drink, giving them a little nice rest period. It's like when your parents tell you not to go swimming right after you eat. That's what that reminds me of.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Dr. Randy. Um, and you can follow us on both of our socials. We have at Dr. Randy Petvet. We got him on Instagram, we got him on YouTube, on his website, which is also Dr. Randy Petvet, like the consistency there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I'm at Dr. Sochi if you want to give me a follow. Um, and then if you guys have any other questions, please feel free to submit them. Thank you so much, Ross. Um, anything else to add?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I think that's great.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, perfect. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.