[momothree]

Help! Sage (4 months old) has bouts of vomitting occasionally, and we can't figure out what to do. She is otherwise healthy and happy, so I'm wondering if it's just a sensitive stomach. Sometimes she throws up her food within about half and hour of meal time, or after a drink of water. This morning, before breakfast, we gave her a drink of water (usual routine), and she threw all of it up followed by throwing up yellow bile. Sometimes we can look back at how she was acting before we fed her (in retrospect) and remember that she wasn't actually acting her usual hungry self and wasn't eating as voraciously as usual. She does eat a lot of grass and dirt outside, although we try to stop her (part cow?). I don't know if that is causing the problem, or if she is eating grass because her tummy is upset??? Sorry if I'm rambling, but after searching the internet for answers, I find that all I have is more questions :? . Thanks in advance to anyone who might have some suggestions.

 

[2doodsmom]

Hmmm. Both my doods eat anything they can find and seem never to have a tummy upset. But both the dogs I've had before (Old English Sheepdogs) would often throw up after gulping water. I never knew why, but it seemed to be related to the drinking so fast, because they never acted like they felt bad.... So if Sage vomits and then carries on as usual, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You might consider putting water down in smaller amounts several times a day for a while and see if that changes anything. However, if Sage keeps acting like she feels lousy even after throwing up, or if she's losing weight, I would defintely take her to the vet to rule out anything more serious, but it could be something really simple, like acid stomach. (I had a dog who needed TUMS twice a day.)

I can't imagine not feeling like throwing up if I ate some of the stuff my doods will attempt - rocks and dirt and grass and poop!

 

[momothree]

Lisa--thanks, I didn't know that you could give dogs Tums. Do you give them whole, or do you crush them? Interesting! I think I'll also try the water thing, my hubby seems to think that there is some connection too. It's definitely worth a try! Thx

 

[K9Summer]

Hi! I see that Sage is only four months- how often do you feed her? Dogs often get vomit bile when they are hungry, like between meals or right before meals. My dogs did it all the time before breakfast- we just needed to feed them faster! I think it also helps to give them a snack right before bed- a handful of kibble in a kong or a few biscuits. She might have a sensitive stomach, but I think this is a common problem in puppies her age. What are you feeding her? It could also be a problem with her food- maybe she would do better on a sensitive stomach formula or a different food. My Summer had a very sensitive stomach when she was younger- lots of vomiting and soft stool. It turns out that she is sensitive to beef and wheat. We changed her food and stopped giving treats with wheat or beef, and no more problems!

Bridget, Summer, and Duke

 

[momothree]

Bridget-

Hi there. We feed Sage 3x a day according to the amount recommeded on the bag. We give her Kirkland Puppy (which I was very happy to see rated highly on that dog food rating system sent by Kelly on the post re:Bil-Jac dog food). I remember reading something about avoiding wheat, beef and corn, and made sure to pick a food that contained none of them. Perhaps she has a sensitive stomach, I don't know. If things don't improve, maybe we'll try a formula for sensitive stomachs. We will also try feeding her right away when we get up with her--right now we don't feed her immediately as she wasn't acting hungry first thing. It's like trying to solve a puzzle (I've never been good at puzzles :lol: ) Thanks!

 

[2doodsmom]

Hi again, momothree. As for the TUMS, I would ask your vet how much to try, if any. My old dog was over a hundred pounds and I'm sure the dose had something to do with that. He used to love the TUMS though, ate them like treats whenever he had to!

Puppies do tend to gulp water - sometimes you just need to slow them down a little.

 

[momothree]

Thanks Lisa. We have a vet appointment tomorrow morning for shots, so I'll ask him about the tums. I really do suspect the gulping--water and food. It just seems that when she is really hungry she gulps both. We feed her in her kongs so as to stop it, but she manages to empty and devour the contents in record time (if she is really famished) and then throw it all up. It's very frusterating, and we are entertaining the idea of feeding her smaller, more frequent meals, but that is really difficult to fit into the day. She is supposed to be slowly working toward going from 3 meals a day to 2 meals a day, and it seems like we are going to go in the opposite direction. :?

 

[2doodsmom]

Let us know what the vet says. If she's not losing weight I wouldn't worry about it too much. One thought, though... Does Sage have water available all the time? Sometimes, if my doods water bowl gets empty for a little while, they think they're dying of thirst and gulp like crazy. My old sheepdog had to be told to slow down when he was taking a drink almost 'til the day he died. Sometimes I even took up his water bowl when I put food down and wouldn't return it until his dinner had settled.

 

[momothree]

You know, I find that so interesting. It really does seem that the more I think about it--water is the common denominator. We pretty much just give her water after walk or play-time, and at meal times. I guess just a habit from when we were intensely house-training. I think (knock on wood) that we could probably leave water out for her all the time now. Maybe you've hit on something--I think we'll try that. Thanks, and I'll post if the vet has anything interesting to say.