Sorry to hear about your Great Dane IAS.
We had a scare these past two weeks with our older Boston, Emerson. She got into a trash can while I was out of town (dog sitter left the bathroom door open, against instructions) and the dog ate a bunch of trash.
She was distended and threw up a few times, but otherwise seemed okay and the dog sitter who didn't want to mention there were tampons in the trash can only told me that she may have eaten some paper towels. So I waited until Wednesday when suddenly she was trying to take a crap and nothing came out. Off to the vet, x-rays show possible blockage. Next day she passes a tampon, I'm thinking everything is good now, but she's not eating and not getting her energy back.
Another x-ray shows another blockage, before you know it I'm at an emergency vet getting an ultrasound which shows a "linear foreign body" (fancy word for string) that is causing her small intestine to bunch up on itself. The string is acting like a saw and they basically tell me that it's only a matter of time before it perforates her intestine and she dies (they felt like it was hours, not days). On top of that there was a blockage of some sort in her stomach that wasn't moving into her GI tract (hence throwing up her food and then eventually not eating).
So the doctors insist that it's surgery or take her home to die. She's 12, but I had to try. She could live another four years if I'm lucky... so she had the surgery. They removed a plastic thing from her stomach, cleaned out some hair ball, and then removed DENTAL FLOSS from her small intestine. They had to remove a section of intestine that was too damaged to heal properly.
That was May 1st. I got her back the following Sunday and it's been dog infirmary at my house ever since. She's had to come to work with me all of last week, has had diarrhea like you wouldn't believe, can't climb stairs or play or jump on anything, was on three prescriptions and a fancy bland diet.
This coming Friday she's able to ditch the cone and stop being kept in a crate whenever I'm not around to make sure she doesn't play with the other dog and rip her sutures. She's also lost a little over two pounds - which for a 19 pound dog is a lot. So once she's otherwise recovered I have to work on fattening her back up - that part I'm sure she'll love.
The price tag on this was
completely insane - so I'm sharing this to tell you all to make sure your pets don't get into garbage. Even if you think you're on top of this, it can be a total freaking disaster over something as simple as a door left open. Also if you don't have pet insurance, I recommend that you at least consider it. Even if it only covered half, it could have saved me thousands of dollars.
This is about two weeks ago, pre-surgery when she was miserable and doped up and not eating.
This is the day I took her home from the animal hospital.
Chilling at my office in her crate:
Sutures after about a week:
Starting to feel a little better:
And, appetite fully restored, back in the kitchen at my office hoping Sam drops some of the food that's going into his smoothie:
