09/14/2026
Our family would like to take a moment to thank everyone for all the messages, phone calls, and coming in The Moose to see how our big guy, Moose was doing.
As you can see by the videos Moose is feeling pretty good. We took a Mini Cooper ride today and if you know Moose this is something he loves to do.
Now that Moose is out of the woods for the most part we feel it’s important to discuss what happened to him and spread awareness to other pet owners.
Two weeks ago this coming Thursday our son and daughter in law brought their dogs over to swim with our dogs and our daughters dogs. They swam all afternoon and evening and Moose seemed fine, diving in after the toys and running around. He went out in the yard and came back with alot of drool hanging from his mouth. We came in and ate supper, which he had some people food as well, went in his large furniture crate which he does when he doesn’t want to be bothered, pulled the door shut, and whined a little off and on. We really didn’t think a lot of it just thought he had ate something outside that didn’t agree with him. We went to go to bed and he just wasn’t acting right. We decided if he wasn’t better in the morning we would take him to our vet, Dr. Ciotta at Cass County Veterinary Hospital. We heard him trying to get sick, so got up to check and he was drooling a lot, trying to throw up and couldn’t, whining a little, hunched over, and his stomach was slightly hard. We called Dr. Ciotta’s Emergency number and within a minute he called back and told us to get him to Purdue Emergency Veterinary immediately or he could die if his stomach had flipped. We threw some clothes on, loaded him up right then, took him to Purdue Emergency Veterinary, and they confirmed that Moose had GDV which is what Dr. Ciotta suspected. They called in surgeons and did emergency to flip Moose’s stomach back and tacked it so hopefully it won’t happen again. The surgeon told us before surgery that there was a good chance they would have to remove his spleen and possibly part of his stomach. He then proceeded to tell us that if they opened him up and his stomach was black they would just have to let him go. Mark and I couldn’t wrap our minds how our sweet boy was fine a few hours ago and was now fighting for his life. The surgeon said they would call us when surgery was over assuming we were going home. If you know Mark, you know he wasn’t leaving his dog no matter what. It was a long 3 hour wait before the surgeon came back to give us an update on Moose. The whole time we are searching the web trying to make sense of what happened to Moose, of course the outcome didn’t looked good and it said they could deteriorate in minutes. Finally the surgeon comes out and says on a worst case scenario the surgery went the best it could have went His stomach and spleen was just bruised badly but they didn’t have to remove anything. He said we caught it just in time and he tells his students minutes matter. GDV is common in dogs with large cavities but it can happen in any dog and they have seen it more in doodles lately for some reason. If you own a dog please look up GDV for symptoms to watch for. If we would have ignored the symptoms until morning he most likely wouldn’t have made it. They are saying complete recovery will probably be a month but we are 10 days post surgery and he is getting better everyday.
Many have reached and asked if we had a gofund me account set up or how they could help with the massive emergency bill. As much as we appreciate everyone offering we would rather you pay it forward to someone else in need. We offer a board at The Moose that is the Slice of Kindness board where you can buy a meal or donate a dollar amount to go towards someone’s order who may be having a bad day. You can also donate to the board online https://www.thebluemoose.co/?location=11eaa5cffc9d706285260cc47a2b63ac&item=374
If we can save one pet owner from going through what we went through this post is worth it. Please share with pet owners you know.
Moose would say, “Eat more Pizza and Ice Cream two of his favorites.” Lol
