Im soon to obtain a gsd pup, and was worried about bloat.
Ive just heard that a tablespoon of bran, or a handful of all bran can prevent your dog from bloating!
Great hey?

Brittany xxxxxx

It's good for horses too....good fiber.

A couple of other things if you're worried about bloat is to not let them exercise hard for 2 hours after they eat and 1 hour before. (which you probably already know if you're worried about bloat...you've probably already read but just in case...)I have a Doberman and deep chested animals are more prone. I feed him twice daily.

There are also 1st aid measures you can take if you buy the equipment. If they bloat you have about 10 minutes to get to a vet or they may well die. You need a stomach tube, a spool of tape...well, you can look up online. I don't know the website, but you can probably find one which will explain all that.

It is indeed a frightening thought.

Carrie

Bran is good for the anal glands too but All Bran is very high in sugar(being a diabetic I scrutinize all food labels ;))

Soaked ordinary bran is fine though

Hi Carrie

I believe that vets in the UK have to provide 24 hour cover so unless they are treating another emergency so there should always be a vet available here to provide a correct diagnosis.  Strangely enough I have just read on a Dobe list of a very famous Am. male whose owner thought he had bloat as his stomach was so swollen and it turned out to be pea-gravel - he was eating birdseed and the gravel as well. Ouch!

Bloat is very scary. We have 24 hour emergency vets too, but depending on how long it takes you to get to them, one may not have enough time. Apparently, if they bloat, you have about 10 or 15 minutes until you can lose them. That's how scary it is. I live a good 45 minutes from a vet so I would need to handle it myself and have on hand the proper equipment. I do know the medical procedure and anyone can do it...not a big deal.

Yes, running very hard right after eating can also cause intussusception, the slipping of one part of an intestine into another part just below it. If surgery is performed within about 24 hours, it usually comes out all right. If not treated soon enough, it will kill them. My GSD's grandsire had this happen and died. He was on loan to someone.

Carrie

Bloat and Gastric Torsion are two entirely different things! Whilst it is indeed possible to deflate dogs using a tube etc, gastric torsion, which is when the stomach twists, is an entirely different matter and cannot be treated EXCEPT for surgery!

In the dog the stomach is suspended and, when full of gas etc, it can rotate thus blocking both ends and causing toxins to enter the blood stream and subsequent death of the tissue and blood poisoning.

Whilst bloat is easy to diagnose (they blow up), GDV is not as many present with atypical signs; no matter how experienced you are, how alert you are to the signs etc, early surgery is no guarantee of survival as most dogs die from the shock.

If surgery is performed a gastropexy is recommended; however this in itself will not necessarily prevent recurrence.

Intussusception is an entirely different thing altogether unrelated to GDV.

Intussusception was caused when 1 of my dogs swallowed a sock. Luckily I`d seen him swallow the sock & had been watching & waiting for it to come out either end. During the 4/5th night he started vomiting, by the time I git him to surgery at 6am he was very poorly, the sock was caught between the 2intestines causing a concertina effect, unable to go further down & unable to come back up.
When 1 of my pups was recovering from parvo at 3mths old her left side started to blow up, vet tried to remove her food with no succes, he operated & told me afterwards her spleen had started to twist. This was gastric torsion.
My 7yr old both sides swelled up last yr, vet tried release gas with a tube but no joy. After he operated he found her food totally undigested from previous 24hrs. It looked like it had only been eaten, no signd of digestion at all. This was bloat.

I feel very strongly with the bloat/torsion stress plays a big part, at least in my 2. Apart from the swelling up of side/s neither dog showed any other symptoms & were happy playing etc.

Christine, Spain.

Unfortunately bloat and Gastric Torsion can be triggered by a variety of things and I feel that just adding bran to the food would have no beneficial effect per se on its own without taking into consideration the other many and varied factors not least familial tendency!

No one really knows what causes dogs to bloat.  There are lots of theories of cause and preventative measures but none are proven.  My own dog bloated and twisted and survived the surgery although it was touch and go for a while as his stomach had turned completely black.  He did have his stomach stapled to the wall of his abdomen afterwards but it broke free again.  Despite this he never had a recurrence.
It's a terrible thing to have to go through :(
Lara x

I have a great dane pup and it is very difficult not to allow them to run around at any time never mind after food! bloat and torsion are both of huge concern to me, i try my best not to alow her to run around at least 1 hour before and 1 hour after eating, it is difficult,;-( my friends dane developed the condition when he was around 5 he was fine 1 min and very sick the next, although he was operated on he did not make it.  :-(.  Dog food producers like Royal Canin state that tere foods are developed specialy and may help prevent the condition? but as stated in an earlier post it is not simply the food alone which may!! prevent it :-(

Apparently you can give bran to slugs and it makes them go "POP"  A dog friendly slug control method

Ouch!

My favourite use for bran is drying off wet pasterns; it is the best use of the product (much more useful than ingesting it) (apart from the slugs :D ) and prevents cracked heels etc.  It is also a lot quicker and cheaper than some of the "modern" methods! :D