Anti-inflammatory side-effects

It all started on Friday when Bart (our dog) ripped his nail off doing something silly, so we rushed him to the vet to get fixed up. He got a sedative (I forget the name of it) to knock him out and then the antidote to reverse it, followed by a shot of morphine for pain because he was getting quite cranky by then. Nobody wants a cranky rottweiler. He also got an anti-inflamatory called Rimadyl to prevent any swelling.

We got very little sleep on Friday night because Bart's heart-rate went down to about 32 beats/min and his breathing was very slow. By saturday morning his breathing and heart were back to normal but he wasn't interested in eating. I eventually encouraged him to have one of the Rimadyl chew tabs. By the afternoon he was looking very woozy and he had started with some evil smelling diarrhea but we didn't think to much of it as he's always had a bit of a sensitive stomach.

In the evening we went for dinner for about an hour and a half. When we got back he had managed to cover most of 2 rooms with vomit and blood from both ends. He's been at Fourways vet for two days now on a drip and it looks like he'll recover. We were very lucky to have seen what was happening, otherwise he could have died within a few hours.

It seems that most anti-inflammatories, not only Rimadyl, can have this side effect, particularly in older dogs or dogs that are prone to bleeding, so if you are giving these to your dog make sure you watch for any warning signs. The early symptoms we saw were diarrhea, not eating, abdominal pain, slight foaming at the mouth, very thirsty and he lost a bit of coordination. It's not necessarily the direct cause of the hemorrhaging, but can act as a catalyst.