Diagnosed with it twice. The vet kept her overnight and withheld food and water, then food. It was caused by escaping, then stealing and binging on mass quantities of cat food and scraps the next door neighbor put out, I think. Recovery was perfect. The second time, a different vet diagnosed it, but was wrong. That vet put her on i/d canned food. She seemed to recover only to have it recur. (I was out of town all thios time). Took her to my vet that said it sounded more like hookworms, although he could not find any in fecal. Dosed her for them anyway and then she was fine.
We lost a five year old boy to pancreatitis about 20 years ago. He had epilepsy and was taking phenobarb. We found out later that the meds could have had something to do with it. I think I would take it very seriously.
I had a Golden who got it from eating more than his share of fatty meat trimmings--way more than his share. He was very, very sick before we got him to a vet and we then decided to take him to a nearby vet school for treatment. He was on IV, heavy doses of antibiotics and hospitalized for a week. During this time he couldn't keep down food or water. When he was finally able to tolerate very small amounts of special food--a teaspoon at a time several times a day--I took him home and he eventually recovered. He was on a low-fat diet the rest of his life--about 5 years I think. He remained extremely sensitive to fatty foods and had a couple of mild episodes that passed fairly quickly with no treatment beyond withholding food for a day or so. But it was a recurrence of pancreatitis that eventually killed him after a relative fed him some turkey scraps at Thanksgiving and he was unable to throw off the disease. He was 13 and after a couple of weeks of supportive subQ fluids, I put him down.
I have seen it in a much less acute form in a friend's dog which got upset stomach symptoms when fed table scraps but never showed the acute problems that my dog did. It's a very serious condition that needs to be carefully monitored.
I know that some breeds are prone to pancreas deficiency and need to be on digestive enzymes their whole lives. I am not sure if it is related to pancreatitis though.
