Vomiting is a natural part of puppyhood and should not necessarily cause alarm. But the color, odor and intensity of its vomit could provide valuable clues as to what may be happening.
Understanding the differences between vomiting and regurgitation is important for your pup’s wellbeing. Vomiting occurs when they actively vomit up food they haven’t digested, potentially with bile. Regurgitation on the other hand occurs passively without producing as loud of noise as vomiting does.
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Causes
Puppies often vomit their food when they ingest something they are unable to digest properly or are chewing incorrectly, as well as for other reasons like viruses or illnesses, foreign objects in their stomach or intestines, poisonous plants eaten, parasites and chemicals they’re exposed to or toxic chemicals present.
Vomit can provide valuable clues as to the source of vomiting in your pup. Bright red blood in his vomit indicates that his food never reached his stomach for digestion and regurgitation was soon after feeding, rather than passing into it and digested by it.
Brown vomit could indicate that your dog vomited chunks of undigested food from his esophagus. Additionally, this kind of vomit may contain grass blades, sticks or bones from their environment – possibly including paper scraps from their owner or foreign items like rat pellets.
Slimy vomit occurs in response to significant irritation. If it is combined with weakness or lethargic behavior and diarrhea, this should be taken as a serious sign and immediate veterinary attention should be sought immediately.
Symptoms
As with infants, puppies can be adorable, scampering around with big puppy eyes. Unfortunately, however, like infants they too can have sensitive stomachs that lead to vomiting of food. It’s important to distinguish between regurgitation and vomiting: vomiting involves violently expel bile-filled stomach contents that appear slimy or smelly before being expulsed out through vomiting; regurgitation, however, usually happens soon after an animal eats and only expels anything not digested properly.
If your puppy vomits clear liquids, that could indicate irritation or inflammation to their gastrointestinal tract. White or foamy vomit could indicate intense coughing while brown or black vomit could signal blood in their stomach or intestines. If blood clots form or the vomit has a coffee-ground appearance take your pup immediately to a vet for evaluation.
Treatment
Vomiting may go away on its own, but more often it indicates an underlying health problem which requires professional veterinary intervention. Common signs include fever, lethargy, loss of appetite and diarrhea – so if your puppy has been vomiting for an extended period of time and dehydration has set in immediately take them to see their veterinarian!
Puppies may experience regurgitation, which differs from vomiting because it does not involve retching or abdominal contractions. Instead, dogs will simply burp up food that they have not digested yet – this process appears slimy but is less dangerous as its contents have already partially been digested by their bodies.
To prevent regurgitation in puppies, try providing smaller meals more frequently throughout the day, placing their food bowl in quiet and spacious environments, using tools to slow down eating (such as commercially available “slow feed” dog food bowls) and keeping multiple puppies away from each other when competing for food – these steps should help them from overeating.
Prevention
Vomiting in puppies may be alarming and unpleasant, but is rarely an urgent situation. Unless they ate something they shouldn’t or are experiencing stomach irritation due to overeating or regurgitation due to overzealous eating or have other symptoms such as pain, pancreatitis or Addison’s disease1, vomiting usually does not require immediate veterinary attention1.1
Sheen suggests withholding food for 12 hours following an episode of vomiting and switching over to a bland diet consisting of cooked white rice and chicken as effective treatments for these cases. Other preventive measures may also help, such as providing smaller meals more often during the day and placing food bowls in quieter locations as well as using tools that slow down eating like commercially available slow feeder bowls.
However, if a puppy is vomiting multiple times each week or is regularly regurgitating food and showing serious symptoms such as blood in their vomit or diarrhea; or shows signs of heat stroke; they should see their veterinarian immediately.
