excessive injestion of water

I didn't do any research on jack russell terriers prior to getting mine so I went through everything the hard way with him but learned a lot in the process. Duncan (my jack russell) had a incredible desire to play in the water and would snap at the spray coming from the garden hose or if at the lake he would run along the incoming water line, lower his chin and begin scooping up water, while swimming he would bite at the water he was pushing in front of him. All of this to the point of swelling from all the water he was taking on. This caused him to get sick a couple years ago and I tried to limit his water activities until recently when I took him to the lake again. He began injesting water to the point of swelling again and started acting as if he were going to vomite but when he tried he just opened his mouth as wide as he could and a wheezing scream came out followed by a very stringy yellowish white foam he then began loosing his balance and fell over, his condition continued to get worse as I rushed him to an animal hospital and he even stopped breathing a couple of times and got totally rigid. My wife gave him mouth to mouth and got him breathing again both times but when we reached the hospital the vet came into our little room and told us that he was showing signs of brain damage (horizontal eye shifting). He said that he was in critical condition and was 98 percent sure that there was brain damage and it was irriversable, leaving me 2 percent to dwell on and suggested we put him down. I couldn't think straight and my wife helped me to make the decision to have him put down. The vet couldn't tell me what actually caused this and I was wondering if it was a comon problem with jack russells or if mine was just an exception. Can you explain what happened? Oh yeah, the first time we had this problem two years prior the vet took x-rays and said there was no water in his lungs. He vomited that same way back then and passed out but when we got him to the hospital he had already began to recover, at that point they told us maybe it was a chemical in the pool water. I never thought this was a deadly problem. I would like to get another but am sure I'll be terrified to let them around the water. I feel horribly responsible for allowing this to happen. Duncan was no less my family than anyone in my family.

• Re: excessive injestion of water Sep 27 (0)