It was two weeks ago today that Thunder bloated and needed surgery for spleen and stomach torsion.  He has recovered very well and is now allowed to run and jump and play a bit.  We had been keeping him close to home, but now he can venture out a bit; however, he has to wait another two weeks to resume light field training.

Yesterday Storm met up with a training group and the big brown dawg had to stay home.  There was a big boo-boo lip over that and about an hour spent in the laundry room pouting.

Why does that girl dog get to go while I am stuck at home?

At least he can also start spending some time in his outside kennel provided the weather cooperates and it isn’t too hot.  He has to wait another four weeks before swimming and training in water.  Mainly the vet does not want to risk Thunder smacking the water with his huge water entry until he is completely healed.

Remember this?

Water Entry

None of that and no dock diving. 🙂

Thunder's New Bowl

He did get a shiny new bowl.

We decided to try this bowl to see if it would slow down his eating.  Since he bloated once, there is an increased risk that he could bloat again.  His stomach has been tacked, but we don’t want him to bloat again or to stretch the tacking because over the years there is a possibility of failure. So we are making some changes including forcing him to eat slower.  There are lots of items on the market to help slow down a dog’s eating.  We picked this bowl which does seem to slow him down a bit.

In addition to the new bowl, we are also making some other changes and leaving some things the same.

  • He will continue on his regular food which is grain free.  We feed him Taste Of The Wild Pacific Stream formula.
  • No large meals for him.  He will continue to have two meals each day which we soak with water.
  • No exercising for at least two hours after a meal.  We will also wait at least an hour after exercising to feed him.  (We have always done this and will continue.)
  • We are adding one Gas-X to each meal.  We discussed this with our vet who said it could help with the foamy gas that some dogs get and it couldn’t hurt.  (It is always a good idea to consult your vet before adding any medication to your pet’s diet.)
  • No large amounts of water at any one time.  During training, we will no longer allow him to free-water.

As far as hunt tests, we will see where he is once he starts to train again.  We cancelled our reservations for an HRC test we hoped to go to in Indiana in the middle of July.  There will be some tests here in Michigan in August and September so we will wait and see how his training goes.  Hopefully he will be able to pick up right where he left off.

Storm will probably be returning to the trainer early next month, (provided she doesn’t come into season early).  We hope to have her run in some more tests this summer.  Even though she had a week off from training after Thunder bloated, she seemed to pick up right where she left off.  Marking still good.  Handling good.  She is supposed to meet up with a training group for some water work this week.  Unfortunately she is due to come into season at the end of summer and the rules prohibit bitches in season from running tests, (don’t want to scramble the boy dogs’ brains ;)).

Unfortunately we also had to cancel our plans to attend the Chessie specialty show which is taking place near Gettysburg PA this Fall.  I have always wanted to go to Gettysburg and this would have been a great opportunity…..ah well…someday…..

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