throwing up during lunch visit/walk

[Daniel/Sarah]

here goes. winston is a male fawn boxer now 14 weeks old. he has had two check-ups with the vet since we got him and he is in perfect health. he actually weighed in at a whoping 22 pounds last week. he is going to be a big boy.

anyway, sarah and i have been crate training him during the day and at night. he is in his crate at MOST 4 hours alone during the day before lunch and again after lunch. not what we would like to do, but we both work. i come home for lunch every day. this is the routine we follow.

in the morning, when we put him in the crate after our morning routine, we give him 4 to 5 ice cubes in his bowl for his water. i come home from lunch, immediately take him outside to let him pee and sometimes he will poop. we play for about 5 minutes and then i let him inside to drink some water. he will drink pretty fast and a lot, but it is no different than the weekends when he has unlimited water. after he drinks the water, i take him on a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood. nothing too strenuous. twice in the past two weeks, he will stop during the walk and throw up. the throw up consists of undigested food nuggets that are lighter in color. he threw up maybe 5 to 8 nuggets each time. the weather has turned hot here in north carolina, in the mid to high 90's. i am just curious if this seems like something serious or if it is just a combination of heat, exertion and drinking too much water too fast. any feedback would be helpful. thanks.

oh, he is fed twice a day, once in the morning at 5:30 am and again at night at 6:00 pm. he gets one cup of purina puppy formula growth and development at each meal.

 

[Hoagie]

Our Maximus is the same way. He's 7 months old now, but has had an extremely sensitive stomach since the start. If he drinks alot and then runs around he throws up, especially when he was really little. It seemed he couldn't eat/drink and then move/play for a while until he digested everything. He also loves to find anything that may gather water in the backyard. This also tends to make him throw up. We had him on one type of food in the beginning but ended up changing because he just wasn't digesting it. He's been doing much better now, as he's been getting older, but everyday is still an adventure whether he'll have a "good" stomach/digestive day.

 

[gmacleod]

Throwing up partially or undigested food is indicative of a problem with the food he eats. I'd try changing his food to something a bit more digestible and see if that doesn't make the difference. Purina, I'm afraid to say, is a pretty nasty dog food that has a lot of ingredients that dogs find very difficult to digest, and that often cause allergy problems. It's quite possible that this is the cause of your problems.

There is some very good information at www.boxerworld.com/feeding about what to look for in a quality dry dog food, what you should avoid, and why That should help you choose a better quality food for him.

If you don't want to reinvent the wheel though, you could choose a food from the Whole Dog Journal's list of quality dry dog foods. They use selection criteria very similar to that outlined on Boxerworld, and are not affiliated with any food manufacturers so it's good unbiased advice. You can find the current list (and the specific selection criteria) in this thread: http://www.boxerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66384

 

[Jan]

As well as following gmacleod's advice regarding food, I would feed your pup at least 3 times a day. Twice a day is not usually enough for a young pup.