UPDATE my son was successfully treated for GDV (bloat) and is recovering very well! Thanks to those who shared the stories and the good wishes of his dogs.

Sorry for not updating earlier. I’ve been hanging around him since we got home.

A sincere thank you to everyone who shared their story about the swelling or just wished us good luck with the procedure.

I still don’t know exactly what caused it, he doesn’t eat or drink fast, I feed him small meals and restrict activity before and after eating. The vet told me that sometimes it can happen even if you really stay on top of it. I think I’ll wonder what I did wrong and feel guilty about it for the rest of my life, anyway.

For anyone curious about the cost of everything, we paid $ 7,500 USD upfront as a deposit. At the time of pickup, we were reimbursed around $ 2500 as things turned out better than she originally thought. We have money for emergencies so it wasn’t a big deal for us, but keep this in mind or consider pet insurance.

I’ll probably upload the detailed invoice and receipt here in a minute because it contains some cool stuff.

My friends always ask me about that is my worst nightmare. I always tell people to wait an hour before exercising after eating and to wait 30 minutes before eating and minutes after exercising. Thank God he’s safe. How did you catch it if you don’t mind me asking?

At first, he kept pestering us to let him out (not unusual). In the backyard, he started trotting, drooling, and trying to throw up, but nothing came up. I felt his stomach and he felt hard. All of this happened ten minutes before we rushed him to the emergency room. Pretty textbook, if your dog starts doing any of these things, get your shoes on and GO!

Here’s a screenshot of the itemized receipt. My young man had a pretty wild Saturday night (incl fentanyl, ketamine!)

The total was about US $ 5,000. It was midnight, also during the night. We brought it in on a Saturday night and picked it up on Sunday night so it wasn’t 24 hours.

They would have held him longer, but he is a total basket case and he would not take oral medication so they wanted him to take it.

Thanks for the sensitive belly tip!