About

 
My wife Anna and I are life-long GSD owners.
You have done surgery on two of our dogs.
My mother is a dog trainer in basic obedience, therapy, and scent work.
We are committed to our dog family.
 
Our experience with you has been extraordinary.  You strike us as someone who learns from every experience and you seem to truly value and enjoy your work.
 
At this time we are in need of an intermediary / hospitalist to recuse details and assist us in making a great decision for our dog.
 
We look forward to collaborating!
Anna, David and Bear Bourgeois

 

Bear is 10 years old. We have had him since birth as we also have his mom who is 14. He has always exhibited signs of exaggerated anxiety since shortly after birth.

Stressful circumstances can shut him down or if he feels threatened cause some aggression. More often than not at this age stress shuts him down.

He has always had an issue causing him to vomit what appears to be small amounts of bile.

Bear bloated on 3/1/2019. He had emergency surgery and during surgery had a prophylactic gastroplexy.

Significant Issues: Bear began having continual regurgitation and coughing soon after these events producing no vomit.

However at times we would return home to multiple spots of clear foamy liquid and bile similar to bloat.

At other times Bear would vomit so profusely that he ultimately aspirates and develops pneumonia. Once that happens he will not eat and is in discomfort. He has repeated this cycle for 18 months.

Bear ran at us in an excited state when we returned home 11/16/2019. We put our legs up to absorb impact and his throat impacted my knee.

To be clear: we do not “knee” our dogs. This was an accidental impact.

He coughed severely and had some difficulty getting his breath immediately after this impact.

Two vets have dismissed this suggesting that if his trachea was damaged the issue would be continuous.

However his cough and regurgitation became so bad that we took him to emergency on 11/29/2019.

This is when we began trying to solve this.

*We have found that giving him small amounts of food regularly through the day seems to settle his stomach.

*When he has a regurgitation, coughing, or vomiting issue he seems to want to stretch his neck out. He will even nearly fall asleep with his head help up high. We have begun supporting his head with pillows which he likes. Again this is only when he is having an issue.

It seems as though Bear may have two distinct problems.

The first issue appears to be gastrointestinal. One surgeon wanted to adjust his gastroplexy and one strongly did not.

However we do not think this is the “only” problem.

I feel there is an issue with his swallowing mechanism. Sometimes food and water appears to enter his trachea. I have included a video of the aftermath of that. This is a regular occurrence.

I had a “human” speech pathologist / recap specialist look at his swallowing and she thought a swallow study was in order. She noticed food falling from his mouth when he tried to swallow.

Anna and I both sincerely hope this is a help!

Below are two videos.  One shows Bear trying to eat.  In the video he seems to have difficulty swallowing which is continuous.  In the other video you see Bear roughly 45 minutes after eating.  He is behaving as if food is caught in his throat or airway.  This is also continuous.