Sudden death in our young dog

[jillianh9]

Last night (October 27th) We found our 5 year old English Setter had passed away in his sleep. On the 24th, he had intestinal surgery to remove a foreign object that he had eaten and it was making him sick. The surgery went perfectly fine and he was sent home with  anti-inflammatories and antibiotics. Two months ago (August 24th) he had the exact same surgery with the exact same meds. This time he refused to eat his meds and we had to crush them
up and put them in a syringe and squirt them into his mouth. He was drinking and urinating like normal. He was still lethargic but that was to be expected after his surgery. Nothing out of the ordinary was obvious.
We woke up the next morning to find that he passed in his sleep. He was only 5 years old and healthy otherwise.
He was purebred, which I know sometimes purebred dogs have underlying medical issues, but he was so young.
I think that two surgeries in such a short amount of time was just too much for his heart. He was a large dog, but only weighed about 50 lbs. He was skinny, but definitely not unhealthy. He was extremely active and could run for hours and that made it hard to
keep weight on him. The vets offered to do a free autopsy on him but we didn't feel it was necessary; it wasn't going to change the fact he was gone.
If anyone has any ideas why this happened please tell me

[ginger899]

I am so sorry about the sudden loss of your dog. The fact that he was so young makes it harder even to deal with. My heartfelt condolences.

The only way to have really known what happened would have been to do the autopsy. But of course, you are right, that won't bring him back, and you probably preferred to leave his body in peace.

Sometimes a blood clot can migrate from a surgery site. This isn't common, but can sometimes happen. That would have been no-one's fault. If so, it could have gone to his heart or brain, causing a sudden fatal stroke. He would have passed quickly, and not known a lot about it.
There may have been another cause....I can't say for sure obviously.

Bless his Soul. I am very sorry.