My dog died suddenly. Could I have saved him by going to the vet?

Question

Hi, i’m Claudio. My dog Black, a Doberman, died the 26 of April 2019. After he was resting from a game we made with the ball he acted strange and he went to a place he never went before to hide and then he dropped on the ground like you see in the photo and he was not breathing anymore. I tried to do chest compressions while calling the vet to ask him what to do. He never responded and the nearest vet was 7-10 minutes from my home. Could I have saved him if I brought him right away to the vet ? Pet's info: Dog | Doberman Pinscher | Male | neutered | 8 years and 1 month old | 88 lbs

Jennifer Summerfield, DVM CPDT-KA · Accepted Answer

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your dog! I know how hard it is to have a pet pass away suddenly like this, without any warning. From what you're describing here, I would be suspicious of a sudden cardiac arrhythmia, or a tumor in his heart or abdomen that may have ruptured suddenly - both of these are relatively common causes of sudden death in middle-aged or older large-breed dogs. With either of these problems, there is usually nothing anyone can do - even if it happened in the lobby of your vet's office and they were able to start working on him immediately, it's unlikely that this would have made any difference at all. So try not to feel guilty. It sounds like you did the best you could, and I don't believe it would have changed the outcome even if you had left immediately for the vet's office. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss. If you think it would help you to have piece of mind, you could ask your veterinarian about arranging for an autopsy to be done (called a necropsy in animals). This would be the best way to determine what the cause of death was.

My dog died suddenly. Could I have saved him by going to the vet?

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