dog stopped eating and died

My 10 year old german wire hair pointer, stopped eating on Wednesday, thought he had a stomach ache. Did not eat and layed around lethargic on Thanksgiving.  Drinking water, but usually throwing up.  Had loose bowel movenments.  Was going to take him to the vet this morning, when he breathing became labored and an hour later he died.  Just trying to sort out what could have happened to my sweet little boy.

[Ghilly]

I'm sorry for your loss.  It's never easy no matter what the circumstances.

If I had to guess, from the symptoms that you list, it sounds like it could have been gastric torsion / volvulus or bloat.  When a dog bloats, the stomach flips over and effectively switches positions with the spleen causing major damage to both organs.  Unless there is immediate surgical intervention to un-flip the stomach, death is a certainty.  Sometimes, depending on the amount of damage done and the amount of time that has elapsed between the torsion and the surgery the dog still dies.  It's a very traumatic thing for the animal's system to endure.

Of course, the only way to know for sure what happened would be to have the vet perform a necropsy.  Otherwise, there is no way to know.

Again, I am sorry for your loss.

Ghilly

[jcsbabydoll]

First, I am so sorry for your loss.
I'm not sure if this can help in any way, but I would have never of thought that this is what was wrong with my dog.
On Monday my 7 year old girl, Sadie, got sick. She was vomiting, wouldn't eat, wouldn't stand up, nothing. Then Tuesday, when she got up to walk she started to limp and seemed to be in alot of pain. We thought she may have had something in her paw that was getting infected or got a bite of some kind. So on Wednesday we took her to the vet. At this point we had to carry her she got so bad. (and she's 90lbs, not an easy task)
To our surprise, she has lyme disease. They gave her three shots and three prescriptions and as soon as Thursday night, she was acting like a her old self..
We always took the precautions to prevent such a thing, or so we thought. But the vet said ticks were SO bad this year. It's near impossible to stop them..
I'm still doing my own research on the subject, but I figured I'd let you know and hope it helps in finding out some answers.

May the happy memories of your sweet little boy ease the pain of his loss.
I hope my deepest sympathy brings you some comfort in some small way.
Karyn