Tracker our English Springer Spaniel started vomiting in August 2012, and after 2 days we took him to the vets who took an x-ray of his abdomen which showed a small stone in the small intestine so he was taken to surgery to remove it. The vets said his surgery was performed without any problems: the stone was removed and the gut was closed routinely, with no leakage detected and apparently the rest of the gut was checked to make sure no other damage had occurred. There was some mild bruising, but no problems were found and there were no areas of necrosis (tissue death).
During the following 2 weeks Tracker had a fluctuating temperature and was lethargic at times and his recovery didn’t progress quite as quickly as the vets anticipated. We took him back to the vets on numerous occasions due to this temperature fluctuation and on 2 occasions they scanned his abdomen, and both times they said there was no sign of any wound breakdown, no fluid build-up and no sign of peritonitis. They kept him on antibiotics for just under 2 weeks and by the time of his last recheck on 20th August he had returned to his normal demeanour and although he had some fluid build-up around his wound at this time, on his final check on 24th August he was back to normal and his swelling had reduced dramatically.
On Saturday 29 September 2012 we took Tracker back to the vets having vomited a couple of times on the Thursday and Friday. The vets palpated his abdomen and there was some material palpable which on x-ray revealed to be firm faeces. As he had not vomited for 24 hours, they put him on lactulose and liquid paraffin and gave him an injection of Metacam to cover for any discomfort he might have been feeling for what they thought at the time was heavy constipation/GI upset. He had no obvious pain in his abdomen to suggest anything was seriously amiss and his temperature was normal. On the Monday we took Tracker back to the vets as although he didn’t show any problems on the Sunday, he had begun to vomit more often and was refusing food. When the vets palpated the faeces had passed through and they were able to feel a thickened area of gut. He was placed on fluids to correct his dehydration but by Tuesday he had not improved and it was decided to perform another exploratory surgery.
Once they had started the operation, it was clear that there had been some marked adhesion formation throughout the small intestine and omentum (a layer of tissue which overlies the abdominal contents). Intestine and the omentum structures had stuck to each other but notably nowhere near the original site of the first operation. Whilst the adhesions were of high concern, the biggest problem was that a piece of gut had either twisted or been trapped by omentum/mesentry (connective fatty tissue & blood vessels suspending the intestine from the body wall) and the gut had strangulated and perforated, leaking gut contents into the abdomen – how and why he didn’t have a temperature that was soaring well above 40 they didn’t know. The adhesion formation in the abdomen was difficult to predict and they said they had performed complex abdominal surgery on animals that have been absolutely fine afterwards, whilst occasionally the most simple and routine exploratory surgery could cause a severe reaction without any known cause. In Tracker’s case they suspected that these adhesions may have occurred in the 2 week period where his temperature was fluctuating following the first operation.
The vets discussed it with us and said that they would have to remove up to 50% of his intestines. I felt that we should not wake him up from the anaesthetic, but my partner thought that we should at least give him a chance. So they connected the gut ends and the omentum was trimmed back as far as possible to prevent it from causing similar adhesions after this operation. I contacted the vets after the operation to check all went well, and was told that 5ft of his gut had been removed out of the 6-7 foot that he had, leaving him with only about one and a half foot. I was shocked as I didn’t want him woken up at just 50% remaining gut let alone 80%. They kept him in for a couple of days and fed him cat food from a tin which gave him chronic diarrhoea.
The vets felt that over all, Tracker’s general recovery from this operation went much better than their first suggesting that there may have been less reaction in the abdomen. Although his temperature did climb at one point, he seemed much brighter generally and his condition improved much faster. No fluid was found on the ultrasound performed following the operation and the seroma that developed around his wound was gone by the time his stitches were removed.
The vets were unable to give us any information on what food we should be giving him. I spent hours surfing the net and after found detailed information on human trials on intestinal rehabilitation and feeding schedules etc which I adapted for Tracker. I found that he was best be fed rice, scrambled eggs, potatoes, wheatabix and cottage cheese mixed together, and to be fed little and often. So I was feeding him every couple of hours through out the day from 6am to 11pm. This constant flow of food enabled the remaining intestine to readapt to take on the workload of the missing intestine. This adaption is a slow progress and can take several months to a couple of years. This adaption time needs to be spent to prevent malabsorption and malnutrition in the future.
We decided to change our vets and took him to another vet when he had a bad bout of diarrhoea who put him on a course of antibiotics due to gut bacterial overgrowth. The antibiotics worked but in the process of killing the bad bacteria the antibiotics also killed the good bacteria. Back to square one with the diarrhoea. We didn’t touch the antibiotics going forwards as they caused as many problems as they were solving. So each time his stools started to get looser it meant the bacterial overgrowth was building again so we fed him natural yogurt until his faeces went back to normal. We changed his diet to Royal Canin Gastrointestinal (very expensive!). It worked for a short time but still the bacterial overgrowths developed but less regularly.
We managed to keep his weight up except for when he worked for a few days on the trot, then we have to really up the quantity of food which just cause a bacterial overgrowth problem again.
The Royal Canin Gastrointestinal food was working out at £75.00 per bag from the vets as it is prescription food. We managed to source it on the internet for £63.00 a bag, which was much better.
We have now changed his food to //ws-eu.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=GB&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=truequest-21&marketplace=amazon®ion=GB&placement=B01KWAIZAY&asins=B01KWAIZAY&linkId=e428edada433d6e24649cba15da282bc&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff” data-wplink-url-error=”true”>Royal Canin Maxi Sensible dog food, which is for sensitive large dogs weighing 26 – 45 kg. Tracker is only 17kg but due to the lack of gut and energy he burns we needed something with some energy clout. We are still feeding him 4 meals a day which are each the size of a heaped coffee cup. If we try to feed him larger meals and only twice a day he straight away gets diarrhoea.
The new food seems to be working very well and he is even putting on weight which is great because when he gets bacterial overgrowth he dumps the weight and becomes skin and bones so quickly.
He has become very food orientated because he is starving hungry all the time which is great for training and keeping him focused on us.
A couple of years later we changed his food to Pets at Homes own brand AVA for Sensitive Skin and Stomach which works a treat and he has not had a bout of bacterial overgrowth since. The only time he get diarrhoea is when he don’t eat his own food.