When your dog vomits: Causes and what you can do
- Veterinarian Mag.med.vet. Emin Jasarevic
- Updated: 2023-04-12
What exactly vomiting in dogs means? The causes and facts about it I show you today in this post. In addition, for this article we have obtained advice from the veterinarian Mag.med.vet. Emin Jasarevic.
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 ingested content from his stomach, which he cannot digest and which harms him. If 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 emetic stimulus itself, the dog eats excessively on an empty stomach Grass. This is found in the sputum along with mucus and sometimes other things such as fur hair.
What is the course of vomiting?
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 nose opens its mouth wide and throws out the stomach contents.
If your dog vomits occasionally, it is usually a 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.
How does vomiting occur?
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 of balance, which may be manifested, for example, by nausea while driving a car, by Diseases in the ear or by Epilepsy express.
Likewise, diseases of organs, in Throat and neck stuck foreign objects, as well as Toxins lead to vomiting.
The causes of 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.
Causes of acute vomiting
- 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)
What exactly does a dog vomit?
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.
1. white foam or slime
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.
2. yellow foam or mucus
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.
3. much water
If your faithful friend vomits water, although he has not drunk anything before, a gastrointestinal inflammation may be responsible.
4. the dog often vomits the food
This may be a feed intolerance, stomach irritation or even intestinal obstruction.
5. there is blood in the sputum
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.
Injury from a foreign body, inflammation of the esophagus, or malignant disease are possible triggers.
Likewise, a Poisoning or Incompatibilities be taken into consideration.
Is the blood dark redit almost certainly comes from the stomach. This is the so-called "Coffee grounds breaking". It can Inflammations, Ulcers and Tumors be responsible for this.
When does it become dangerous?
There are two situations in particular that can seriously harm your pet:
1. too little fluid in the body
During vomiting, a considerable amount of stomach contents can be expelled. At the same time, a great deal of fluid is lost. If your charge takes in too little fluid during this time, there is a risk of the Drying out or a 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.
Proper treatment
Treatment is based on the cause and symptoms.
If it is a harmless reaction of the body, it is often sufficient if your quadruped does not receive any food at first. 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.
If the nausea subsides, the patient can again slowly gentle feed get. In order not to put too much strain on the stomach and intestines after the irritation, fat should be largely avoided. Recommended is a 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.
Preparation of a soft diet of chicken and rice
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 diagnosis at the vet
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 needed to clarify the disease, the physician may perform a Fecal Examination arrange
If the general condition of the quadruped is poor, there is blood in the feces or fever or cough are involved, a blood sample is taken for a Blood test. This examination can show the function of e.g. liver and kidney, but also reveal diseases such as diabetes mellitus.
Other examination options include the Endoscopy. The doctor uses a mirror camera to look down the esophagus and into the stomach. There he can detect possible inflammations, ulcers, tumors and foreign bodies. Since the examination is painful, it takes place under anesthesia.
Sometimes also an examination of the abdominal cavity by means of Ultrasound. The doctor looks at the internal organs of your four-legged friend and can detect changes, inflammations and foreign bodies.
Does the doctor make a X-ray image, there is a suspicion of intestinal obstruction. The image shows the arrangement of the organs, possible deposits of gas or fluid in the digestive tract and abdominal cavity.
What you can do
As always, prevention, timely detection of disease, and if needed, timely treatment is critical to health.
- Pay attention to what and when your protégé eats.
- Give him Toyswhich he cannot break down into parts suitable for his mouth and swallow.
- Rooms at home Foreign body away that your four-legged friend can eat.
- Bring him through consistent and loving upbringing that he must not lick, chew or eat anything outdoors.
- Does your protégé belong to the so-called "Vacuum cleaners", which actually find everything tasty, a comfortable muzzle can give the necessary protection from poisoning and foreign bodies.
- Your darling should not have incompatible food ingest. These include very fatty, spicy and fried foods, raisins, some fruits 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, splinter bones and fish bones. You can find more in our big list: What dogs can not eat.
- Consider the vomit of your protégé carefully. If it has an unusual consistency or color, or if there are solid pieces in it, be careful.
- Go to the vet immediately if you suspect poisoning. Depending on the type of toxins, they affect his organism differently. Some have an effect immediately after ingestion, while others become noticeable much later.
Home remedies for nausea
- 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!
Frequently Asked Questions
Your dog may vomit acutely for the following reasons:
- 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
- Cold
For the following reasons, your dog may vomit often over a long period of time:
- 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)
Once your dog has vomited, you should stop feeding him for at least 12 hours and then give him a gentle diet.
If there is blood or other foreign matter in the vomit and if your dog vomits frequently over several days, be sure to visit your veterinarian.
Gentle foods of rice, carrots, chicken broth and chicken are good for soothing an upset stomach. Healing clay, charcoal tablets, chamomile tea and electrolytes also help with nausea and vomiting. These home remedies should only be used for acute vomiting.
Conclusion
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.
I am a veterinarian and writer on animal health topics. Animals are my passion, and it is my personal goal to create medically accurate articles and videos to educate pet owners as much as possible.
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