Causes of Sudden Death in Dogs?

I found my extremely active high strung 6 year old dog Rocky, that I've had for 5 years, dead yesterday morning when I got up. He was lying on the floor next to his bed. He had just begun rigor mortis. He was a Cocker Spaniel Chihuahua mix.

The afternoon before he died we had company stop by and my dog literally freaked out barking and literally screaming when the man walked into the room. I put my dog in the bathroom until they left. Later he went outside to potty and came in until his 10 pm potty break. Then we went to bed. He was quiet at 4:30 am when my husband normally potties him so he didn't check on him. I found him at 7;30 am dead.

He was a rescue who didn't like anyone, but my husband and I. He would bark furiously at anyone else and even in the car at people next to us. Could he have had a heart attack from the unexpected excitement of a stranger coming over earlier in the day?

I miss his happy morning greeting bark this morning.

My dog was a Cane Corso mix; exactly 1 year old. One day she was barking at the construction workers next door as she always does, all of a sudden while running she wobbled a little bit hit the wall and dropped dead stretched out on the pavement.

My daughter's 18 month old male brindle pitbull was suddenly found dead in the backyard laying on his side, tongue hanging out, jaw hard to pry open, legs straight and stiff as if it were stuffed by a taxidermist. There was nothing wrong with him before she left, playful and energetic as usual and within a couple hours he was gone. I strongly feel foul play was involved but how and what caused this tragic loss?

My Frenchi passed away yesterday afternoon. He had a nice big meal the night before and was playful. He was 11 years old. I woke up and fed him and then put him and his brothers in their room as I left the house. When I got back a couple hours later he was laying there sideways dead and already starting to get hard.

My mom's dog passed away today in the morning and my family and I had gone to my cousin's yesterday. We got home like around 1. When we got home her dog (Aries) was fine and jumping around like he normally would. I even played with him for a little while before I went inside.

Today in the morning around 9 I went to take my dog that lives inside to go to the restroom. When I was about to go inside a car beeped at me. It was my neighbor's son. He asked me if the white dog with spots was our dog. I said yes and he said that when he woke up to release his dogs he saw my dog lying down in his lawn. He called him, but he didn't get up so when he checked he noticed that he had passed away.

My sister asked if it was one of his dogs, because before we had a big dog attack my Chihuahua that caused him to get big cut in his stomach, but he said that he didn't have any scratches or any sign that he had gotten hurt. When we went to pick him up, he had no scratches nor did it look like he was run over. He had his tongue out, so I think he might have eaten something because he really liked to get into anything he finds. Every week there was always someonea shoe or toy in our lawn and he always liked to eat everything. I really don't know how he could have died. He was really young. He didn't even have a year with us. I also think that it might have been that he didn't have his vaccinations. Whenever we get a dog they would always die so young because they didn't have their vaccines, but usually they would look sick. However he actually seemed fine the last time I saw him.

My baby Skittles, a 3 year old Chihuahua/Shih Tzu mix, passed away yesterday afternoon. On Saturday, my mother-in-law called him and he came out from lying under the barbecue grill. But, he was limping and even yelped. We thought it was his leg.

Then, on Saturday evening when we came home, I called him and he came and stood up on my legs, front paws by my knees, ears up, letting me pet him. Happy. He was walking around and acting fine, but walking a tiny bit crooked, barely a limp.

The next day, Sunday morning, he yelped with certain movements and arched his back, tilted his head to the side, upward. He did not want to eat or drink. He was walking with more of curved body, stumbling.

Monday morning, he refused to eat or drink, and had the same symptoms, a little more yelping time to time, not consistent. He would not look at me, keeping head to the side. He stayed in his kennel most of day, refused food and water. My son got him out of the kennel in the afternoon and he walked down the hall, but kept his back arched and to the side, like curved. He pooped 2 medium size balls in his kennel, but did it lying down. He couldn't poop standing up. He yelped every now and then, like 45 minutes apart.

I took him to the vet at 2:45 (soonest they could see him from calling Monday). The vet took him out of the kennel, he seemed to have a left teary, watery eye. He let the vet hold him. He weighed 5.3 pounds. The vet felt him, listened to his heart, touched his back paws, lifted them up, to make sure he knew what his feet were for, looked in his ears, eyes, and mouth. Everything looked OK. He walked around, not in circles, just from one door to the other, by me, for a minute off so, but yelped once while doing so. The vet turned Skittles head from side to side, and he yelped. The vet said it was a disc disease and sent him home with anti-inflammatory oral meds. He gave him fluids, meloxicam injection. (Sent him home with same antibiotic.)

Skittles remained the same that evening. The next morning, Skittles just laid in his kennel. I dipped my finger on water and touched his little mouth. He licked his snout, but his eyes opened and closed quickly for about 30 seconds (almost looked like he was having a slight seizure), his leg moved back and forth more than it had been. His tongue came out a tiny bit, he'd peed on himself.

I went to ask my in-laws for help, because I wanted to wash him with his dry shampoo and give him clean bedding. Skittles let my father-in-law get him out of the kennel and we washed him. I gave him like 3 small pieces of canned dog food, he ate it! He even licked the napkin, but couldn't stand up hardly at all. After he ate, his tongue again came out a little. But then went back to normal. My father-in-law gave him his antibiotic and put him back in his kennel, as he didn't look well at all. I wanted to think he was getting a tiny better, only since he ate!

Two and a half hours later he passed away. He was never throwing up or having diarrhea. I looked on his body thoroughly and did not see signs of blood, cuts, nothing. I called the vet's office to let them know he had passed. But, unfortunately they said it costs a lot of money to find out what caused his passing away. I am just hoping that someone out there has experienced something similar with their little guy and could give thoughts so I'll at least know what I could have done differently, other than taking him to a different vet on Saturday when he started limping and not waiting till Tuesday. He was up to date on all vaccinations.

He was normally a happy, little dog, that would run down the street slipping under the gate, playing feisty with his best buddy Scooby, never bit anyone, never aggressive, just excited, and loved to be pet behind his ears and under his chin.

My dog seemed fine in the morning when we let her out and back in. We ran some errands and when we got home she was stumbling, her tongue was hanging out and was really blue, and her gums were blue as well and she couldn't breathe. My husband carried her to the car and I rushed her to the vet, but she died when I got there.

I found my dog outside dead. She was a healthy 9 year old cairn terrier. Her eyes were open and tongue hanging out. Everything was so shocking that I let my brother bury her.