If my puppy had bloat, could emergency vet treatment have saved them?

Hello. I am so sorry for the loss of your puppy. When such a young dog has such severe symptoms, survival is very unlikely. I do not know the basis for your decision - if it was an economic decision or something else, but hospitalization with aggressive fluid therapy would have been the only chance to save Sassy. Stomach medicine is a part of the therapy, but IV fluids are very important, & even with this, Sassy may not have survived. Vomiting blood is an unusual symptom of HGE, so it is possible something else was at work here, but none the less, it was severe. I am so sorry for your loss. Please accept my condolences.

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your dog! I know how hard it is to have a pet pass away suddenly like this, without any warning. From what you're describing here, I would be suspicious of a sudden cardiac arrhythmia, or a tumor in his heart or abdomen that may have ruptured suddenly - both of these are relatively common causes of sudden death in middle-aged or older large-breed dogs. With either of these problems, there is usually nothing anyone can do - even if it happened in the lobby of your vet's office and they were able to start working on him immediately, it's unlikely that this would have made any difference at all. So try not to feel guilty. It sounds like you did the best you could, and I don't believe it would have changed the outcome even if you had left immediately for the vet's office. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss. If you think it would help you to have piece of mind, you could ask your veterinarian about arranging for an autopsy to be done (called a necropsy in animals). This would be the best way to determine what the cause of death was.

Yes, it was the right decision, without taking him to the vet he would have zero chance to survive, now at least he stands a fighting chance. he is very young so overall i would say his chances are not very good, but you never know, with the correct treatment he might perk back up and survive this.

Hello. I am so sorry for your loss. It is very hard to say if this was preventable, but quite likely, it was not. This degree of heart disease in such a young puppy would have come from a congenital birth defect, a fairly common occurrence in this breed of dog. If a murmur was picked up early enough, an electrocardiogram would have been able to pinpoint the problem, & the next step would have been open heart surgery. This was absolutely not negligence by your veterinarian. Birth defects do happen in animals, just like in people. Some are manageable, others, like this are sadly not, unless you go to extraordinary measures. I know you are sad about this loss. Please accept my sincere condolences & thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Hello, I am very sorry to hear about your Alfie. It does sound that your puppy had liver disease, likely liver shunts. This is almost always a surgical condition. We do not recommend surgery only if it is technically impossible to do. Feeding special diets, giving antibiotics or lactulose it only complementary treatment. It is not possible to bring up a healthy dog with liver shunts only by giving special diet. Finally, it is not uncommon to recommend euthanasia for sick, poorly, seizuring puppies. Some of them just do not give much hope for a healthy life despite all intensive treatment and procedures we can provide. Please, accept again my condolence on your loss.

Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I am sorry your dog passed away, it is always hard to go through that. From your description, it sounds as though your dog had a gastric dilitation volvulus (GDV) or 'bloat.' This is where the stomach flips upon itself. it is a life threatening condition that requires surgery in attempt to fix. Sometimes, the signs that occur when this first happens can be subtle and it goes unnoticed for some time before being treated. When the 'flip' happens, it causes a large amount of inflammation that the body must contend with and unfortunately, a good outcome doesn't always happen. It sounds like you did everything you could for your pet. Of course, it is hard to know tell what happened for sure based on your description. Since you are asking this question a year later, you may still be grieving. It may be of benefit to speak to the veterinarian who took care of Patch to discuss what happened. There are also counselors who work with grief over pet loss in your area that also may be of benefit to you.

I'm so sorry to hear this happened to Rocky. I can tell you loved him a lot. He may have had a chance at survival with the blood transfusion but there is no guarantee. If he had liver failure then no treatment would have been effective long-term. Without having his entire medical history it is hard for me to comment other than to make generalizations but I believe you did what you could and it does not sound like the blood transfusion would have helped that much. Again, I am sorry for your loss. Best wishes.