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Today the entire family was outside doing yardwork. We have 2 labs both are housedogs. They were outside with us. About 1p.m. one of them started throwing up. After she threw up twice, she continued with dry heaves for about 5 minutes. She then collapsed and died within about 15 minutes. Up until she threw up the 1st time she acted fine and normal. She was running and playing fetch and seemed fine. What could have caused her to die so suddenly? She never left the yard, we were outside with her the entire time, and our other lab is fine. I intially thought it may have been antifreeze, but I checked everywhere and did not see any signs where it could have been, plus i haven't had any out for weeks. All pesticides etc are way out reach anyway. We are dumbfounded as to what could have happened so fast. Any ideas?

No idea what could of happened. But I'm truely sorry for your lose. Anyone that ever said one cannot buy happiness has never owned a lab.

Sorry for ya loss, always sad wen we loose pets......ya'll be in the thoughts and prayers

had a buddy that had a lab pass away of the same thing and from what he told me, he said the vet told him something of the nature that his lab's stomach "turned over" inside of him. i am not real familiar with what that invloves but it kinda sounds like his dog throwing up and stuff like that. he rushed his to the vet and the vet said there wasn't much he could do except emergency surgery and that wouldn't likely fix it by then. might be a possibility. but i am not sure

sorry about your loss. Always tough to lose one.
From your original post the time frame from the first vomit until she passed is about 20 minutes. Is that correct? If so, that is way too fast for antifreeze. That usually takes a day or two to actually kill the dog.
It could be GDV (stomach torsion) but again that time frame is usually a little longer and you would have prob seen her abdomen swell up and she would have been in pain. Its an emergency but its not fatal in 20 minutes.
Honestly thats about all I can tell you. Sorry I don't really have any good ideas. A toxin like Timek is possible but not likely if she never left the yard.
You might consider taking her to your vet or to MSU for a necropsy.

Sorry for your lose. About the timek. My dad has a company that fertilizes trees and what we would do is bore holes around the pecan tree and pour in the timek and then fertilizer. Timek is very dangerous after water hits it. Ask around and see if your neighbors have had any trees fertilized, because this is the time of year to do it.

Thanks for your replies. After reading about the "stomach flipping" I think that may have been it. Although she wasn't bloated or swole up at all. whatever it was it appeared really painful for her. Still can't believe it. Just goes to show how fragile all life is. One hour she was out running and playing with the kids and having a blast, an hour later she was gone.

Well honestly the least that can be said is that you and your children's last memories of her will be fond ones. Least you got to play with her before all that happened and all dogs go to heaven, we all know that she went happy.

sorry for your loss

HeKing wrote:sorry about your loss. Always tough to lose one.
.........You might consider taking her to your vet or to MSU for a necropsy.

+1.....the only way to know for sure. Seriously call the MSU vets and see if they will do it ! sorry for your loss. t

Sorry for your loss!!

sorry for you loss. Maybe your lab had something like mine did. Last September we lost ours very quickly. She was fine when my Husband left the house, just did not want to go training with him when he was taking the younger one. NOt so unusual for her because she sometimes got bored. I got up about 30 mins latter and noticed she lost her morning meal but did not think much of it. She was still up and wagging her tail. I got my coffee, noticed her laying down in the den and having breathing problems, I call my vet and I rushed her to his home to be checked out, than he has someone meet me at the clinic. She never made it to the clinic. All of this was in less than 45 min. The vet did an autopis on her and it was necrotizing pancreases. Basicly, her pancreas was eating away from her body producing too much acid. Just took her throwing up to rupture it and her system went into shock. Nothing no one could have done or detected before hand without a lot of test. No reason to have any test because she seemed fine. We had her spaded 2 months before this and the vet did a full panel of blood work on her since she was 8 yrs old.

Very sorry for the loss of your good friend and companion. It's never easy to lose one they are all special.

Thanks franny, don't know if you remember but we got her from you. She was a great one.

I did remember you all right, but wasn't sure if it was the same lab or not. So sorry that you lost her, she was only about 4 right? I remember that you said what a great lab she turned out to be. I hope your family will have fond memories of her. And I wished they lived as long as we do. I go out of my way to make sure my girls don't eat too much or heavy exercise after eating, labs do have problems with the bloat and stomach twisting. After hearing about all the labs gettin this lately, I'll be even more careful.

That was her daddy on the left.