Loss of Boxer after Inflammatory Bowel Disease

My dog presented with vomiting at the vet. They took an x-ray which showed nothing, treated him with IV therapy, meds and sent him home.

This was a Wednesday, Friday night he started crying and I took him to OSU Vet Hospital. They x-rayed him and said he was full of gas everywhere so they admitted him and gave him drugs and IV therapy. They called me on Monday (after they discharged him on Sunday) said they saw a shadow on the x-ray- . They recommended an ultrasound which I went right back and did. They said where there was a thickening in the small intestine (actually two areas) and recommended exploratory surgery.

I took him to my vet for the surgery. He recovered a squeaker in his large intestine which he said would have passed okay but said the two spots in his small intestine were abnormal so he biopsied them. Within 24 hours the incisions in the biopsies opened and he went septic.

OSU did surgery on him and flushed him, removed those spots of small intestine. His kidneys never recovered and he was put down over 24 hours later. He could have made it had his kidneys survived. My dog was a 3 year old Boxer.

The findings on the biopsy was as follows:

1. Specimens characterized have moderate chronic inflammatory process characterized by multifocal to coalescing areas of infiltration of the lamina propria by many lymphocytes, plasma cells, eosinophils, and a few neutrophils. Mild to moderate blunting of villi. Marked to marked lymphangiectasia. Submucosa and tunica muscularishavemild to moderate granulation tissue proliferation with infiltrates by a few neutrophils. Many capillaires within the submucosaconatin many neutrophils.

2. Moderate chronic multifocal to coalescing, granulating supportivelymphoplasmacytic enteritis with moderate to marked lympangiectasia.

3. There is no evidence of neoplasia noted in the sections examined. In addition no etiologic agents or foreign bodies noted. The lesions noted in the intestinal tract are consistent with inflammatory bowel disease. The cause of this disease is unknown however it is thought to result from abnormal immune response to antigens in food or antigens formedinthe intestinal lumen by resident bacteria. The mild to moderate lyumphangiectasia may lead to protein losing enteropathy. In addition the increased numbers of eosinophils may suggest and underlying hypersensitivity reaction to food allergen or forei9gn bodies. The granulation tissue noted within the submucosa and tunica muscularis in addition to the neutrophils is suggestive of a possible underlying erosive lesion elsewhere within the intestinal tract. No evidence of malignancy.

WHEW!! I can't help but feel responsible. If I would have left him alone the small squeaker in his large intestine would have passed on its own but he vet said the small intestine is probably what was causing him pain and would have gave him more problems. Also those thickening spots on the small intestine would have killed him anyway going untreated.

What are your thoughts? Did I do something wrong?
My dog always had bad gas and occasional diarrhea... He also got into everything. I just loved him so much.



Vet Comments on Dog Loss After Biopsy

Hi there,

My deepest condolences on your loss. What a sad story; of course you are grieving. Please try to be kind to yourself during such a difficult time. You did absolutely nothing wrong. You made decisions based on the best information you had available at the time and that is all anyone can ever do.

It sounds like your dog did have inflammatory bowel disease – the pathologist report and his symptoms match the disease well, and it is very common in Boxers. This is also probably why his initial surgical sites dehisced (opened up) causing his sepsis. The inflammation associated with the disease prevented the areas from healing the way that they should have.

Inflammatory bowel disease is tricky. It can either be relatively simple to treat, responding to a hypoallergenic diet and/or immunosuppressive drugs well, or be unresponsive to therapy and eventually fatal. There is no way of knowing which way your dog’s case would have gone, but it is certainly possible that you could have lost him in the not too distant future even if his kidneys had been able to recover.


Again, my deepest condolences,

Jennifer Coates, DVM