Dog Must Eat Standing Up

Some people already say that about humans, Patty. Tis a weird world.

I actually owned a dog with megaoesophagus, so it is hurtful to see comments like, "put the dog to sleep". We just had the food elavated for her to eat and tried to keep her standing up after she was fed. She ate 3 times a day, and ended up throwing up a lot. It was a lot of work, but she was such a great dog that it was well worth the effort. She did end up passing due to complications of aspiration pneumonia, but I'm glad that she had a relatively happy life. It seems cruel just to kill an aminal just because it needs a little extra effort to take of it, what would happen if the same was said about humans?

From the wiki page about the condition - "Because the food stays lodged in the throat, it can often be inhaled into the lungs causing aspiration pneumonia. One way to avoid this is to make sure that every time the dog eats or drinks anything, that the dog sits for at least 10 minutes afterwards or is held in a sitting up or begging position. This requires that all food and liquid intake be closely monitored and specifically administered to the dog in regular intervals (sometimes as often as 2-3 hours) in smaller quantities." It goes on to stress the difficulties of getting enough calories, etc.

That's a hell of a lot of work, especially with a big rottweiler. As much as it would have made better sense to put painlessly to sleep at 7 weeks, I really hope there's a bleeding heart big enough out there to want to take on this insane task.

As long as it has a loving owner that helps it get proper nutrition, I don't see a problem with keeping it alive. If it ended up getting malnourished from not getting enough food, I could see how it'd be cruel to keep it alive.

@Vonskippy - nature doesn't "intend" anything, but given that you believe it to be so I hope you don't take any medical treatment. What's that? You do? Hypocrite.