Please Help! Excessive licking, vomit, eating grass!

[mmvine]

Hello,

Our 4 year old female boxer has been exhibiting some odd health issues lately. For the past two nights, she has thrown up her entire undigested (or even chewed!) dinner after various attempts at licking the kitchen floor and at eating the only green thing outside (a small evergreen type tree next to our back door--everything else is covered in snow!). She also has excessive gas after she throws up, plus some loud swallowing sounds, burps, and what seem to be hiccups. She is also licking her paws and whatever she's lying on. I'm sorry for the long-winded description. I hope someone out there can please help us before we just take her to the vet!!

Thank you,

Margaret - Mom to Copper (6 yrs) and Kasey (4 yrs)

 

[Dempseysmama]

Something sounds pretty wrong. I say take her to the vet and keep us updated.

Also, you should post your intro that way we can all welcome oyu here and know a bit about your dogs when you post about them!

Good luck!

 

[garvinsmum]

Doesn't sound good to me either
I'd take her to the vet and take a sample of the plant too.

Many plants are toxic
http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/pplants.htm

 

[Vela]

First of all, please post your introduction, this should have been your first post and is stated in the rules that all members must follow.

Secondly I just went through a two day throw up session with Ginger over the weekend. First thing you need to do is stop all water and food for 12 hours, limited water if she seems dehydrated. Check her gums to see what color they are, if they are pale or white then get to the vet immediately. If they are a healthy pink/red then no need to panic at this point. Check her capillary refill time by pressing on her gums to see how fast it turns back to pink/red after you press it. Should be 1-2 seconds. Anything longer you should monitor and call and check with a vet. After 12 hours start with water and small amounts like 1/4 cup of just low sodium chicken broth, nothing else. If that stays down you can increase it a little over the day and by the next day try cooking some plain white rice in chicken broth (instead of water) and offering that. If that stays down try offering some chicken the next day and gradually bring her back to her regular diet.

If she seems bloated or otherwise ill or seems dehydrated and/or running a fever take her to the vet straight away. If it's just the vomiting and upset tummy the above will probably work just fine.

BTW what food are you feeding her, how much, and how often? If you are feeding her only one meal a day you should split into two, in the mornign and evening. Dogs have a greater chance of bloat and other problems when fed only once a day.

Hope she feels better soon.

 

[Donna1969]

sounds familiar

My girl did something very similar to what your doggy is doing. After a few days of the circle of eating/drinking->throwing up->drooling licking, belly sounds etc she proceeded to vomiting with touch of blood in it. Got her to the vet, ran tests and her pancreatic levels were high. Was given some meds, diet changed to a prescription bland food and she was AOK.

I'd say give the vet a call, when they heard my doggies symptoms they had me come to the office pronto w/her. Might have had something to do with the blood in the vomit.

 

[mmvine]

Thank You

Thank you all so much for all your posts. I have posted an introduction today. We've been members for quite some time, but unfortunately we haven't been active for a long while.

After reading the rules I realized that I wasn't supposed to post this sort of issue. I apologize for that, but I do appreciate all your responses. Kasey is doing very well today. She wasn't eating the green stuff outside and then getting sick, she was ill before she ate the green stuff. She does that when she wants to vomit. Typically she eats grass, but since there's about a foot of snow on the ground, she decided to go with the only green available! Also, we watch her when she goes outside and she only managed to get one little piece of the tree into her mouth before we stopped her.

Kasey and Copper eat twice a day, once in the morning and once around 6. Each meal is about a cup and half of Nutro Large Breed Adult with olive oil and garlic mixed in. In the morning meal they also get about 2 tablespoons of pedigree wet food mixed in with the dry. Currently Kasey is resting on the futon with her head on a pillow! Yes, our kids LOVE pillows.

Again, thank you all so much for your care and concern. We greatly appreciate it!

 

[Vela]

You can post about health problems and things like you did. The only thing you needed to do first was post an introduction. The rest of your post was fine as far as that goes, glad to hear she's feeling better.

 

[brenmich]

I'm glad to her your baby is feeling better. Our boy Jake has Pancreatitis
and goes through the licking, drooling, vomiting 1-2 x a month. We had meds from vet for his tummy a acid blocker which I believe is similar to Pepcid AC.
If you do a search here on BOXERWORD for Pancreatits you can read some of
the previous post.

 

[mmvine]

Update

Hello All,

An update on Kasey. When I got home from class this afternoon, I heard some noises that I thought were cats fighting under our front porch. Turns out they were coming from our little Kasey! Her stomach was doing overtime. I took her to the vet, and after an x-ray that detected nothing but a little too much gas in her GI tract, they sent us home with some liquid barium and instructions for a gentle diet starting tomorrow. The barium definitely seems to have helped her, although a lot of it ended up on the floor rather than in Kaesy!

Thank you all again so much for your concern........we really appreciate it (and so does Kasey!).

 

[Dempseysmama]

Glad all is well!