Pinto’s visit to the all-you-can-eat buffet
The other evening, Pinto started walking around and whining. He wouldn’t settle down for his normal after dinner nap, and he was incredibly thirsty. We took him to the emergency clinic where they did x-rays and told us what had happened: unbeknownst to me, Pinto had gorged himself on an unknown amount (although we are estimaing 8-12 cups) of his food. His stomach didn’t appear immensely bloated from the outside, but from the x-ray his stomach was giant - many times it’s normal size.
There wasn’t much the vet could do, we just had to watch him, not give him water, and limit his food intake and activity level for a few days. The danger was that if he was too active, his stomach could twist or flip, leading to the more serious - and life threatening - problem of gastric torsion (bloat).
The biggest lesson for me in this wasn’t, as you might think, to make sure the door to his food is securely shut (although I sure did learn that lesson). Instead it’s simply that if he can, he will - no matter what the food item is. Although we were careful about the door in the past, now we are extra careful. Also, we now keep the food in secure bins rather than the bag. This was an expensive lesson to learn and we’re lucky it wasn’t worse. He could have kept eating or his stomach could have twisted.
We know we aren’t the first dog owners to go through this (in fact, we also heard of a cat who did this), and we probably won’t be the last. If you’ve never really examined your food storage security, or even if you think that securing the food is common sense, I suggest that you take a look at your food storage from your dog’s point of view to ensure that it is, indeed, secure.
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One Response to “Pinto’s visit to the all-you-can-eat buffet”
I know a few humans that could benefit from this advice. Namely me.