Wonderful news....never thought of it but the sea water would have dehydrated her...just like us humans having eaten salty foods......so glad she is home.....she will be back to normal in a jiffy!!!
One of our friends Sammys got sick after his trip to the beach, and too much salt water. IIRC it took a few days to recover completely. When Tilly was a pup she drank too much ocean, and threw up, but had no affects beyond that. She never did that again. Cooper's first trip was uneventful. She seemed a little smarter about trying to drink the ocean dry.
Glad to hear it was only a temporary issue. It is a common problem at our vets as he (during puppy preschool) mentioned that he gets a lot of dehydration cases, especially after a beach visit. He said a good way to tell if your dog is dehydrated is to pull up the skin on the neck behind the head and when released it should quickly return, he even got us to demonstrate on our puppies. He wanted us to do this before we leave the house so we got a feel of what is normal (to compare against).
Ah glad she is home and seeming more herself.I was with my friend once at the beach and her dogs were terribly ill after retrieving tennis balls from the sea....they ended up in the verts for the night on an IV too x
I just had no idea going to the beach was so dangerous for them! I'll definitely be more alert in future. This is really good advice, thank you! Also, our vet said to feel her gums...she got me to feel them and they were tacky dry not wet as they should be. We should maybe make a note to warn other dog owners of this.
Wispa had nearly a week on IV when we were in Scotland about three years ago. She was very ill with diarrhoea and vomiting, possibly as a result of playing on the beach and in the sea, though the Firth of Clyde isn't perhaps as salty as elsewhere. The vet wasn't sure what had caused it, but several dogs on the Ayrshire coast had been ill. Although the dogs love the beach (and Wispa just adores swimming) I haven't been so keen to take them since when we've been there. I'd never had any problems with my older dogs in previous years, so perhaps it was something unusual in the water.
Our dogs seem to learn not to drink the salt water after their first experience. We are fortunate that almost all the beaches we go to have fresh water streams running across them from the woods in to the ocean. We always go through them when leaving the beach, to get the salt out of their fur, and give them a chance to drink fresh water. Do most folks remember to carry fresh water with them when they go to the beach?
I don't think new dog owners know how important this is. The image is of dogs playing happily on the beach but there are no warnings of the dangers.
Ah and they do love it and can really enjoy it,so don't be put off if you are lucky enough to be able to take them.I would just say don't throw things into the sea to retreive,that was what caused my friend's dogs to be so poorly,they were hoovering up water as they scooped up the ball.My dog was only young and not really bothered so we were ok ( although he did get frozen tail....crikey that will worry you further now!)Dexter hates ingesting water, we have a swimming pool and even when he takes a 3 second dip he comes out hawking like he's going to bring up a lung I must video it,you can't believe the noise!
Very good advice! I didn't do this but saw plenty of people who did. Frozen tail??? Oh my! Yes please to the video...
I think dogs do learn not to drink seawater, but taking fresh water with you and offering them that does seem to help a lot. Charlie retrieves out of the sea all the time. It's one of the things he loves best in life. I don't throw balls though, only dummies. It depends how high a dog holds his head while swimming as to how much water will go in their mouths while holding a ball. Charlie holds his head quite low in the water, and will cough to remove the sea water all the time if he is carrying a ball. A dummy is much better - the dummy sort of fills his mouth so water doesn't wash in when he is swimming.
Please advise if you can...Libby is FAR better now, thanks for the good wishes, but still isn't really eating her kibble. I gave her a different one to see if she was associating the old one with feeling ill. She ate some of the new one at first but is now ignoring that too: takes one look and walks away from her bowl. Before the dehydration she loved her food whatever it was. She will eat chicken but I'm not over feeding her on it as I want her to eat kibble again! I've read the article about dogs going off their kibble and the tactic of taking it away after 10 minutes so today I will do that and won't give her anything else so she gets hungry enough to eat what's offered. Any other ideas?
