Nightmare torsion – why it is less hazardous with PLATINUM

What is torsion?

Torsion is a dreaded disease that without any surgical intervention, mostly leads to death. Especially big dogs and dogs with a low chest tend to torsions, but also medium and small dogs are affected. Older animals have a higher risk than the young ones.

Torsion means that the stomach rotates about his own axis. Blood vessels, cardia and pylorus (esophagus and intestine) are strangulated and interrupted, which causes circulatory collapse and congestion in the abdominal viscus.

Clinical picture

The disease pattern is characteristic and starts a few hours after eating. An extremely swollen and hard belly is the typical appearance. Dogs are mostly apathetic and suffer from the first shock impacts. The general health condition worsens rapidly and goes along with unproductive vomiting, gagging and stressed breathing. Late or failed therapy could lead to death. Survival after the surgery depends on how fast the torsion is recognized and operated.

Risk factors

It is mostly assumed that several risk factors are responsible for torsions:

• The size of dogs. A study shows that half of the animals had a withers height of 61 to 71 cm.
• An association with deep and tight chests as well as accumulation of the affected dog’s family is indicated.
• Many studies determine that senior dogs bear a higher risk.
• More than half of the concerned dogs of a study were fed only or mainly with extruded dry dog food.
• Torsion is boosted through fermenting food which is swelling the stomach.
• The feeding of just one big repast increases the risk.
• Playing and jumping directly after eating also increases the risk.

Prevention

As there is no ultimate cause known for torsion but there are rather several reasons the following points are just recommendations without guarantee:

• Especially big dogs should be fed several times a day (minimum twice) and particularly in the evening just a small amount of food should be given.
• The dog should have an adequate rest after eating.
• Gorging and involving air swallowing should be avoided or reduced (for example with a gobble stop bowl)
• Hygienic handling of the dog food is quite important, as bacterial contamination of the dog food leads to uncontrolled fermentation.

Conventional kibbles are usually made with a huge content of indigestive wheat. For this reason and the extrusion under high pressure and temperatures, a starch layer frames every single kibble, which has to be broken down in the dog’s stomach. As a consequence to this, the dog food swells to a multiple size, gets digested slowly and can cause bloating. Just give it a try: pour warm water to conventional kibbles, you’ll see the result.

Contrary to that PLATINUM dry dog food doesn’t swell at all and dogs don’t get swollen bellies. The gastrointestinal pass is much faster and the stomach is not stressed. The risk of torsion clearly declines. Dogs even need a shorter rest after eating.
As Platinum Dry Dog Food is packed direct after the manufacturing process into small package units a high hygienic standard is preserved and an uncontrolled bacterial fermentation is eliminated.