When your dog vomits: Causes and what you can do

From time to time all dogs vomit sometimes.

You probably know this too. Our four-legged friends sometimes eat grass to possibly regulate their gastrointestinal upset. In the process, they may vomit a certain time later.

Here we do not need to worry. This is part of the recovery process.

However, if this happens unusually often or the vomit looks "different" than usual, then it's time to educate yourself about the issue and possibly see the vet.

When your dog vomits.

Your pet empties the contents of its stomach, which it cannot digest and which is harmful to it. If the vomiting is unusually frequent and severe and is accompanied by other symptoms, caution is advised.

If your dog vomits, a reflex reacts and the stomach is stimulated to empty its contents. This is a protective mechanism of the organism against incompatible substances and foreign bodies.

To produce the nausea itself, the dog eats an excessive amount of grass on an empty stomach. This is found in the sputum along with mucus and sometimes other things such as fur hair.

1. Malaise and nausea

The possible characters are:

• frequent swallowing
• Smack
• Strong salivation
• Unrest
• Stand still while walking
• Lowering the head
• hanging tail and ears
• Absorption of large quantities of grass

2. Choking

By alternately contracting and relaxing the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm with the mouth closed, the contents of the stomach are conveyed toward the oral cavity.

3. Vomiting

Your furry friend opens his mouth wide and throws out the contents of his stomach. If your dog vomits occasionally, this is usually normal behavior*. *He tries to get rid of the cause of his indisposition. If, on the other hand, the reaction occurs more frequently, various causes may be behind it and should be recognized at an early stage.

The vomiting center in the brain is responsible for vomiting. It is triggered due to different stimuli.

These include disorders of the internal organs such as in the gastrointestinal tract, liver and kidney. The reactions nausea and vomiting report that something is wrong in the organism.

Other stimuli for the vomiting center are irregularities in balance, which are manifested, for example, by nausea when driving, ear disorders or epilepsy.

Diseases of organs, foreign bodies stuck in the throat and pharynx and toxins can also lead to vomiting.

Medicine distinguishes the reaction into an acute and chronic form

1. The acute vomiting

The dog spontaneously ejects the contents of the stomach. The action lasts less than two weeks.

2. The chronic vomiting

This runs regularly and lasts longer than two weeks. As a rule, it does not improve without medical help. To determine the exact cause, examinations of the blood, excretions and body are necessary, especially in the area of the stomach and intestines.

• Eating spoiled food
• Feed intolerance and feed allergies
• Gulping down the food
• Too rapid change of feed
• Swallowing a foreign object (toy parts, wood, bones and more)
• Infections caused by viruses and bacteria or parvovirosis
• Poisoning (rat poison, pesticides and more)
• Too much heat and sunlight
• Travel sickness
• Imbalance of the hormone balance
• Psychological factors such as stress, neglect, grief, poor attitude and treatment.
• Acidification from the stomach
• Intolerance or side effects of medications
• Disease of the stomach and intestines
• Gastric torsion
• Stomach emptying disorder
• Cold

Causes of chronic vomiting

• Parasites like worms, giardia.
• Viral diseases such as distemper, hepatitis, parvovirosis.
• Various bacterial pathogens such as: Leptospirosis.
• Gastric ulcer
• Gastritis (inflammation of the gastric mucosa)
• Inflammation of the large intestine (colitis)
• Liver disease
• Inflammation of the pancreas
• Kidney diseases
• Addison's disease (adrenal insufficiency)

If your pet vomits, you should take a close look at the sputum. There are clear signs that point to the cause and provide information about a possible disease.

If the symptoms appear once or twice, in most cases it is a harmless disorder. Information about the health condition of the four-legged friend is indicated by the dog itself. If he seems alert, cheerful, responsive and eats normally, he is doing well.

Vomiting in the morning before eating

If your pet vomits before eating and usually in the morning, this may indicate that the stomach is acidic. Normally, the gastric juice serves to break down proteins and activate enzymes. If the stomach has remained without contents for a long time, the gastric acid attacks the stomach lining.

If this type of vomiting occurs frequently, a disease of the stomach may be the actual trigger.

Yellow slime

The yellow color indicates parts of bile in the gastric juice. The reason for this is a reflux of the contents from the small intestine into the stomach.

Vomit water

If your faithful friend vomits water, although he has not drunk anything before, a gastrointestinal inflammation may be responsible.

Vomit food

This may be a feed intolerance, stomach irritation or even intestinal obstruction.

Vomit blood

It is possible that a blood vessel has been injured or a gastric ulcer has burst. If the blood shows a bright red color, it comes from the area of the mouth and throat or esophagus.

An injury caused by a foreign body, an inflammation of the esophagus or a malignant disease are possible triggers. Poisoning or intolerances should also be taken into consideration.

If the blood is dark red, it is almost certainly coming from the stomach. This is known as "coffee grounds vomiting". Inflammation, ulcers and tumors may be responsible.

There are two situations in particular that can seriously harm your pet:

1. Too little fluid in the body

A considerable amount of stomach contents can be expelled during vomiting. At the same time, a lot of fluid is lost. If your pet takes in too little fluid during this time, there is a risk of dehydration or dehydration. Especially if he also suffers from diarrhea.

If the kidneys are not able to compensate for the loss of water, this can be dangerous and even life-threatening for the four-legged friend. The body lacks the electrolytes potassium and chloride and the nerves and muscle cells are impaired in their function.

Likewise, too much acidic gastric juice can be lost through vomiting. The pH values in the body get mixed up. Organ damage can be the result.

2. Inhale the vomit

If the larynx does not function properly during vomiting, food or fluid easily enters the lungs through the trachea. You recognize the evil when your furbaby suffers from shortness of breath, coughs heavily and becomes apathetic or feverish.

The treatment depends on the cause and the symptoms. If it is a harmless reaction of the body, it is often sufficient for your four-legged friend not to eat for the time being. About 12 - 24 hours of abstinence should be sufficient.

In this way, further nausea can be prevented and the irritated gastrointestinal tract calms down. It is important that your faithful companion has access to fresh water at all times.

Once the nausea subsides, the patient can slowly be fed a gentle diet again. In order not to put too much strain on the stomach and intestines after the irritation, fat should be largely avoided. It is recommended to Gentle diet from rice or mashed potatoes and poultry meat.

In addition, the portions should be small so that the stomach slowly gets used to eating again. If no problems occur and the quadruped tolerates the food well, it may receive the usual feeding again.

If you do not see any improvement after fasting, you must go to the vet. Additional signs of illness are blood in the sputum and symptoms such as pain, fever and diarrhea.

In the case of acute discomfort, you can prepare a diet of chicken and unsalted rice for your protégé.

High quality chicken meat is recommended here. You can boil the chicken meat with bones. However, you need to remove the bones from the meat after cooking.

• After cooking, cut the chicken into bite-sized cubes. Let the chicken broth cool. Then skim the fat from the surface of the broth.
• Take about 600 ml of the chicken broth and bring it to a boil.
• Meanwhile, you can thoroughly rinse a cup (about 230 gr.) of rice (white short-grain or long-grain).
• When the broth begins to boil, add the cup of rice.
• Let it boil again. Then reduce the heat. Cover the pot with a lid and let the rice simmer gently for about 20 minutes.
• Let the rice cool completely afterwards.
• Add the cooked chicken to the rice and mix well.

The ratio of rice and chicken should be between 2:1 or 3:1. After you have fed your darling with the gentle diet for a few days, you can slowly switch to his normal food in four to five days.

If the gentle diet does not help or your dog's symptoms worsen, contact your veterinarian immediately.

The examination depends on the severity and duration of the disease. The first thing is the general condition of the patient. The veterinarian will ask you about your suspicions regarding the symptoms, the possible history and the eating and other behavior.

He then measures the fever, checks the eyes, palpates the organs in the abdomen and checks for pain reactions. So that the nausea and the agonizing nausea subside, your pelt nose receives soothing medication. Antibiotics against bacteria may also be necessary.

If further findings are required to clarify the disease, the doctor may order a fecal examination.

If the general condition of the four-legged friend is poor, there is blood in the feces or a fever or cough is present, a blood sample is taken for a blood test. This examination can show the function of the liver and kidneys, for example, but can also reveal diseases such as diabetes mellitus.

Other examination options include endoscopy. The doctor uses a mirror camera to look into the oesophagus and stomach. There he can detect possible inflammations, ulcers, tumors and foreign bodies. As the examination is painful, it is performed under anesthesia.

Sometimes there is also an ultrasound examination of the abdominal cavity. The doctor looks at your pet's internal organs and can detect changes, inflammation and foreign bodies.

If the doctor takes an X-ray, there is a suspicion of an intestinal obstruction. The image shows the arrangement of the organs and possible deposits of gas or fluid in the digestive tract and abdominal cavity.

As always, prevention, timely detection of disease, and if needed, timely treatment is critical to health.

• Pay attention to what and when your pet eats.

• Give him toys that he can't break down into mouth-sized pieces and swallow.

• Clear away foreign objects at home that your four-legged friend can eat.

• Teach him through consistent and loving training that he must not lick, chew or eat anything outdoors.

• If your pet is one of those so-called "vacuum cleaners" that actually find everything tasty, a comfortable muzzle can provide the necessary protection against poisoning and foreign bodies.

• Your pet should not eat any incompatible foods. This includes very fatty, spicy and fried foods, raisins, some types of fruit and vegetables, spoiled and moldy food, unclean drinking water, water with additives from agriculture or with bitter or fermenting substances. Also nuts, chocolate, other sweets, milk, lactose, splintered bones and fish bones. You can find more in our big list:What dogs can not eat.

• Take a close look at your pet's vomit. If it has an unusual consistency or color or contains solid pieces, caution is advised.

• If you suspect poisoning, go to the vet immediately. Depending on the type of toxin, it will have different effects on the body. Some have an effect immediately after ingestion, while others only become noticeable much later.

• Gentle diet with rice, carrots, chicken broth or chicken meat

• Healing earth

• Charcoal tablets for dogs (also called activated carbon)

• Chamomile tea

• Electrolytes

Treatment with natural home remedies is suitable only in case of a mild disorder of the gastrointestinal tract. It should be done only if vomiting occurs spontaneously in your dog and only once or twice. The remedies can only be supportive in case of a temporary disorder and cannot cure any diseases!

As long as it rarely happens and your dog is otherwise fine, you have nothing to worry about.

As soon as you notice that something is not right, you should observe him more closely and ask your veterinarian for advice. Never administer medications or herbal remedies to your pet without proper knowledge. The wrong treatment may worsen the symptoms or disease instead of curing it.