It all started back in October.\u00a0 Eddie (my black mini poodle) threw up one Tuesday morning.\u00a0 No big deal, right?\u00a0 Dogs are known for vomiting periodically.<\/p>\n
But then he threw up again later that day.\u00a0 And once in the middle of the night.\u00a0 And the next day, too.\u00a0 Other than tossing his cookies regularly, he was his normal poodle self.<\/p>\n
I called the vet.\u00a0 They asked me if this little poodle had gotten into any garbage or otherwise ate something he shouldn\u2019t have (dietary indiscretion), ate something fatty (pancreatitis) or had access to something like lake water (giardia).<\/p>\n
The answer was no, no, no.<\/p>\n
So we decided to observe a few days to see what happens\u2026 provided Eddie continued to appear otherwise healthy (e.g., ate well, he drank well and he played normally). The doc also instructed me to give a teaspoon of Maalox twice a day to the little guy.<\/p>\n
Eddie was good for a couple days. But then the vomiting started again.\u00a0 So this time we went to the vet.<\/p>\n
First we tried the \u201ccheap and easy\u201d way.\u00a0 We gave Eddie some antibiotics and anti-vomit meds, since sometimes a bacterial infection can cause vomiting (without other clinical signs).\u00a0 We also put him on a low-residue food.<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t go over well, so eventually I moved to a boiled chicken and overcooked rice mixture.\u00a0 That turned out to be a big mistake (more about that later).<\/p>\n
We went in for another vet visit.\u00a0 This time we did the full work up, including a complete blood count, a regular x-ray and a barium study.\u00a0 Eddie was also put on an IV to rebalance his electrolytes (which were low due to all the vomiting).<\/p>\n
Oddly enough, the barium x-ray showed a blockage.\u00a0 But since Eddie\u2019s stools were normal, that seemed a little odd. Nonetheless, I fed him very small amounts of a \u201cmax cal\u201d food every four hours. The barium came out in his stool\u2026 but nothing else.<\/p>\n
So why did the barium bunch up on the x-ray like that?\u00a0 Possibly because of an intestinal spasm.\u00a0 But healthy stools wouldn\u2019t be able to pass through if it was truly blocked, so we crossed \u201cintestinal blockage\u201d off our list.<\/p>\n
Then the doc said it\u2019s likely an intolerance to chicken\u2026<\/p>\n
Bing, bing, bing \u2013 I think we have a winner!<\/p>\n
I immediately removed chicken from Eddie\u2019s diet.\u00a0 And within days, he went from vomiting at least two times a day (sometimes four times) to just once.\u00a0 And eventually he was increasing the length of time between vomiting episodes \u2013 24 hours\u2026 36 hours\u2026 50 hours\u2026<\/p>\n
At the time I\u2019m writing this, he\u2019s thrown up once in the last seven days.\u00a0 I have no doubt his stomach and GI tract are all inflamed and torn up after so many weeks of vomiting.\u00a0 (Poor guy!)\u00a0 And it probably takes some time for all the allergens to leave his system.<\/p>\n
Right now he\u2019s eating Hill\u2019s Science Diet ultra-allergen Z\/D formula, which seems to be working really well for him. However, this is just temporary.\u00a0 I\u2019m not pleased with the quality of the food, so as soon as his system is settled I\u2019ll likely start doing my own allergy trial. That means slowly adding back in protein sources (except chicken!) and carbs to see if he does well.<\/p>\n
From there, I\u2019ll choose a food \u2013 probably a limited ingredient food \u2013 such as Wellness, Natural Balance, California Natural or something similar.\u00a0 They come in a lot of combinations like \u201cpotato and venison\u201d or \u201csweet potato and herring.\u201d Anything is better than the prescription Z\/D food, that\u2019s for sure. ?<\/p>\n
The doc says we can also do an allergy screening.\u00a0 We may go that route too, though I\u2019ve heard you tend to get a lot of false positives.\u00a0 If he continues to do well simply by removing all chicken sources, then perhaps an allergy screening isn\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve learned a lot over these past 6 weeks about vomiting dogs.\u00a0 In the coming posts I\u2019ll share some of this info with you, just in case you\u2019re dealing with a head-scratching case of a vomiting poodle, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It all started back in October.\u00a0 Eddie (my black mini poodle) threw up one Tuesday morning.\u00a0 No big deal, right?\u00a0 Dogs are known for vomiting periodically. But then he threw up again later that day.\u00a0 And once in the middle of the night.\u00a0 And the next day, too.\u00a0 Other than tossing his cookies regularly, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[22,23,20,21,19],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poodle_health","category-poodle_nutrition","tag-dog-allergies","tag-dog-food-intolerance","tag-dog-throwing-up","tag-poodle-sensitive-stomach","tag-poodle-vomiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/clubpoodle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}