[ Post a Response | Rhodesian Ridgebacks And Friends ]
Posted by Alyssa on 3/8/2008, 2:17 pm
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When Greg got home from work on Thursday evening, he saw the cat food container on the floor, lid broken (from the fall, we think), and half its contents gone. I had just refilled it the night before, so it was totally full with fresh cat food. Finn doesn't countersurf ever, so our guess is that the cats knocked it off and he and Ollie ate about 6-8 cups of cat food between them. Lilly is innocent in this because she was crated. Neither of the boys got a big dinner Thursday night and we pretty much expected just a lot of gas and probably some diarrhea.
Last night, during dinner, I noticed that Finn was the last one eating -- hadn't touched his turkey neck, then he coughed a piece of meat back up and just stood and stared at it. Not like him at all. He's usually the first one done. I thought maybe he was having a tooth issue, so I looked, but his teeth were fine. That's when I noticed that his sides were puffed out, his tuck-up/abdomen was swollen and hard as a rock.
The vet took us in right away. She wasn't able to feel his liver, so she did some x-rays which showed that his stomach was huge and full of cat food, gas, and fluid. At that point, it wasn't clear whether there was torsion or not, so after some bloodwork, they sedated him, took another x-ray (he wouldn't lay on his back for them long enough to get the snap) which showed that his large intestine was pushed over to the other side, his spleen wasn't really visible at all, but his liver seemed to be okay. His capillary response time was sluggish, too, but no evidence of torsion or a blockage on the x-ray.
They suctioned his stomach and got 2400 ccs of partially digested cat food and fluid out, then they rinsed it until it was basically clear of food material, x-rayed him again, woke him up, and checked his capillary response again -- better.
3 hours later, we got to go home. He's on Flagyl and metaclopramide for the next 5 days, small boiled chicken meals for the next few days, and lots of kisses. The vet did not think his raw diet had anything to do with this episode, but that it was due to the enormous quantity of dry cat food that he just couldn't get out. He never did throw up at all and never did have full-blown diarrhea, just tiny, frequent poops that looked like kibble/cat food poop. Contrary to what we initially surmised, Finn probably heard the container get shoved over on the floor, went to investigate, and probably ate the entire amount himself. I've not seen any evidence that Ollie helped eat any of it, in fact.
So that was our Friday night. I'm just so thankful that it wasn't more serious and that we didn't have to make an emergency vet run. I also have to say that Finn never showed the classic dry heaving associated with bloat (although he does have the wrong chest depth/width ratio -- my own suspicion is that this played heavily into him bloating). All I knew is that he didn't look right and this was something I wasn't willing to wait and see on.
-- Alyssa.
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