Health & Medical

The phone lit up at two in the morning with a photo from a friend: a puddle of bloody diarrhoea on the kitchen floor and a small dog who looked fine a moment ago. I told her to go to the emergency clinic now, not in the morning, and she did. It was hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, and the speed mattered more than anything else that night.

HGE is not just an upset stomach. It is a sudden, severe inflammation of the gut that produces bloody diarrhoea, often with vomiting, and can drop a dog's condition fast through dehydration and shock. The cause is not always found. Some cases follow a dietary indiscretion, some follow stress, and many simply arrive with no clear story. What matters is the speed, because a dog can go from bouncy to collapsed in hours.

The warning signs are hard to miss once you know them. Bright red blood in the stool, repeated vomiting, lethargy that is out of character, and a dog who suddenly will not drink. My friend's dog was wagging an hour before the photo. That is the trap. HGE does not give you a slow build. It announces itself.

At the clinic they ran bloods to check the red cell concentration, because the gut can lose protein and fluid faster than you can see. The treatment is fluids, often intravenous, to replace what is pouring out, plus anti-nausea medication and sometimes antibiotics if infection is suspected. Most dogs turn a corner within a day or two once the fluids are in. The friend's dog was home the next evening, quieter, but recognisably himself.

What to do in the first hours

Do not wait to see if it passes. A single episode of soft stool is one thing. Blood, repeated vomiting, and a flat dog are another, and the gap between them is where the danger lives. Call the vet, describe it plainly, and if they say come in, go. I have seen owners wait because the dog "seems okay between episodes," and the between-episodes calm is the part that fools you.

Withhold food for the short window the vet advises, but never withhold water unless told, and never guess at home remedies. A dog losing fluid from both ends cannot afford a folk cure. The clinic's job is to stabilise, and they do it well when they get the dog early.

Recovery at home is boring on purpose. Plain food in small amounts, introduced slowly once the vet says the gut is ready, and a close eye for the first week. Some dogs bounce back fully. A few have a second episode later, which is why the follow-up check matters even when everything looks fine.

The vet explained why speed saves lives here. The gut loses fluid and protein faster than the dog can replace by drinking, and the blood count climbs as the body dehydrates. IV fluids flip that equation within hours. My friend's dog perked up once the line was in, not because of a miracle but because the basic math of his body was finally balanced again. That is the unglamorous truth of most emergency care: replace what is lost, then let the body do the rest.

After the crisis, the question is what caused it, and often the honest answer is we do not know. Some dogs have one episode and never again. Others are prone to repeats, and the vet may suggest a bland diet trial or tests for underlying gut disease. My friend kept the first stool sample in a bag, which the clinic actually wanted, and it saved a second description over the phone. Gross, useful, and now a permanent habit in that house.

The lasting change was vigilance without panic. A single soft stool is still just a soft stool. But blood, repeated vomiting, and a flat dog are now a recognised pattern in that home, not a mystery. The friend texts me photos now, sometimes of nothing, just to be sure, and I tell her the same thing: when in doubt, the clinic would rather see you early. HGE rewards the owner who moves first and apologises later, not the one who waits to be certain.

Prevention is mostly about not giving the gut a reason to revolt. My friend stopped leaving the compost bin unlatched and stopped sharing rich table scraps that her dog's stomach clearly could not handle. Not every HGE is avoidable, and that is the honest truth. But a boring, consistent diet removes a category of triggers, and after one night like that, boring starts to sound like a gift.

The scary part of HGE is how normal the dog looks right before it is not. That friend now keeps the emergency clinic's number in her favourites and knows the colour of healthy stool by heart, which is a grim but useful skill. If you take one thing from her night, let it be this: blood from the gut is never a wait-and-see situation. Move first, ask later, and let the vet be the one to tell you it was mild.