Vomiting after Meals

[SammiRajah]

Hello,

My girl (Sammi) is 3 years old, and is quite small (I think) for a boxer. She is between 35-40 lbs. We also have another boy puppy (Rajah) who is almost 6 months old, weighs about 40lbs, and it a tad bit taller than her already.

This past January, Sammi began vomiting almost every morning for about a week, so we took her to the vet. The vet prescribed some med's, but once she was off off of them, she was vomiting again. We took her back to the vet two more times, and each time they were unable to figure out a problem. So the vet just assumed she has a sensitive stomach.

We had her on Authority dog food, and she seemed to be fine. But once we got our new puppy, she stopped eating her food. (She wanted his puppy food) Ever since then, she won't eat Authority anymore. Since then, we've tried her on Pedigree, Beneful, and Bil-jac. She didn't seem to care much for the bil-jac, but gobbles the other two foods down. Unfortunately, she throws all of them up after eating them. It's not after every meal, but every couple of days. Sometimes the vomit is a lot of foamy stuff, sometimes it's all of her undigested food.

As skinny as she already is, I don't think it's good for her to be throwing up her food and losing weight. I don't mind changing her food, but it seems like she does this with all food, even the more expensive Bil-jac, so I am questioning whether it is diet related. Is there a medical condition that my vet might not be thinking about that you know of?

I also should add that she has no other symptoms...no diarhea, fatigue, etc., in fact she is the most energetic dog I've ever seen! (She makes my 6 month old boy tired!)

 

[BasilStreets]

It could be a number of things. Could be a problem with diet which could be dealt with by switching to a higher quality kibble.
She could be eating too quickly, in that case try putting something in her food bowl, like a ball or rock, that she has to eat around and as a result slowing her down.
If she is throwing up foamy or yellow liquid in the morning (i wasn't clear if this is what you were describing) it could be that her stomach is empty for too long, a snack right before bed usually helps this.
The only other things I can think of are that the new puppy is stressing her out and that is the cause or that switching food all the time has messed up her stomach. If that seems likely, I would just put her on a bland diet for a few days, like cooked rice and chicken with active bacteria yogurt, and then slowly switch back to whatever kibble you are planning to feed long term.
Hope this helps.

 

[edith]

Is there any consistant ingredient in the food that you're giving her that she might be alergic to (for example chicken/fish)?

I also have a 2 babies, Shadow (4 yr old girl and 65-70 lbs) and Epson (2 yr old boy, also 65-70 lbs). Shadow also has a very sensitive stomach. When she was a puppy, the only kibble that argeed with her was Nutro. Then we got Epson, who has always been on BARF. The same thing happened, they both wanted each others food and we wanted to keep Epson on BARF, so we tried Shadow on BARF and we've never looked back.

I'm not suggesting that you switch to BARF, but maybe a vegetarian diet.

Shadow is happier and healthier for the change in her diet.

 

[gmacleod]

All of the kibbles you've mentioned so far are very low quality foods - full of animal by-products and cheap grains like corn and wheat, which very often cause allergy and vomitting problems. I'd suggest you try feeding her a better quality food, and see if that doesn't make the difference.

There is some good information on how to choose a good quality dog food on our feeding page at www.boxerworld.com/feeding A dog food is only as good as the ingredients that go into it and that page tells you what to look for, what to avoid - and why.

If you want a list of foods to select from, you could choose one that has been selected by the Whole Dog Journal. They have no affiliation with any food manufacturers (so it's good unbiased advice) and use selection criteria very similar to that described on our feeding page. The current list, and their selection criteria, are posted in this thread: http://boxerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66384

 

[slang]

Too soon to tell, but...

Just wanted to say hi and tell you I feel for you. Our 9 month old female started vomiting about 5 weeks ago but only in the middle of the night. She eats twice daily and never vomits during the day....only at night. It also will consist of either mushy food or yellowish foam, although it's food most of the time. She's been to the vet and had blood work, e-xrays, etc. and fortunately all was negative. She was put on medication and prescription dog food and things really didn't seem to get better. Over the past couple of days I've been glued to the internet and have found a wealth of information on diet right here at Boxerworld.
(We just became members the other day. What a great site!). I discovered that even the prescription food the vet put her on has all the things in it she probably shouldn't be eating, i.e., corn, wheat, etc. Just yesterday we bought her Sensible Choice food which we purchased at the local Petco and started her on a little last night. Probably coincidental but she didn't throw up. Will let you know if this was the cure. Let me know how your boxer baby is doing.

 

[cb977]

Sammi used to have the vomiting problem. I tried a number of different foods and we've settles on Purina One for Sensitive Stomachs mixed with the packets of Mighty Dog (little meat squares in gravy). The other thing we did (and it's what I truly think helped solve the situation) was to buy an elevated feeding station. It seems to help the digestion process if the larger dogs don't have to lean over to their food bowl. We've also learned that Sammi gets a certain "look" on her face when she's not feeling great and that's when I give her a Pepto caplet about a half hour before she gets her food.
Good luck, hope your baby feels better soon.

 

[gmacleod]

Mmm. I would not suggest the use of a raised feeder. There have been several veterinary research studies in the last few years that have shown that using raised feeders substantially increases the risk of bloat (which is often fatal) in large and/or deep chested breeds like the boxer.

There is a sticky thread at the top of the health forum that discusses two of those studies, and their findings (other risk factors included).

 

[cb977]

Thank you for the information. I'm going in to read that thread right now. It really did seem to help Sammi, but if there's even a slim chance of me actually doing her harm, I'll change back to regular feeding bowls. Thanks again.

 

[SammiRajah]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I think we are going to try her on the raw diet after we research it a bit, and in the mean time we will check out some better quality food and see if that makes a difference. Thanks again for all the responses, I really appreciate them!

 

[reames]

spread it out!

our pup does that and all we had to do was spred her food out on a cookies sheet, (forces them to eat one piece of kibble at a time) to help digestion... also give pup half of meal and feed twice as often to help too... i duno this is our first, and advice is from our vet, but we havent had a problem sice we started doing this