My puppy is nearly 6 months now. This morning (at 3:30 AM) he woke me with whimpering (he was in his crate as usual). When I checked on him, saw that he had vomited (light yellow color). This is the 4th time in the 4 months that we have had him that he has vomited in the early morning hours. The only thing that I can tie into from the other times is I fed him about 4 small treats that we got at a dog bakery - ingredients listed as 100% human quality, etc. etc. Looked on their website and found that the first ingredient is chicken, followed by the next 6 ingredients having wheat in them. I'm thinking that he cannot tolerate wheat. He has been on Iams Puppy Chow since last Saturday when we finally found a nearby source for Canidae. The store owner suggested that I phase him into the Canidae over the next 3 to 4 weeks. He was eating 4 cups of Iams per day but she said on the Canidae he would only need 2 cups at his weight (about 40 lbs). All this week I have been giving him 3 cups of Iams and 1 cup of Canidae spread over 3 meals per day. He LOVES the Canidae and in fact have to give him the Iams first and then when he finishes that, he gets his portion of Canidae (otherwise he will pick out the pieces of Canidae and leave the Iams).

Is this too long a time to phase over to Canidae or am I doing it correctly? Plan to start on 2 cups of Iams and 1 and 1/3 cup of Canidae starting tomorrow for one week.

He is a bullmastiff/pitbull mix. He gets plenty of exercise - I walk him one mile each morning plus he also gets two or three play sessions a day. His pictures are in the link below.

Diane, what time do you feed him his last meal at night? My dogs are 21 months old now, and if they are hungry and it is past their feeding time, they will occasionally vomit a light yellow liquid and then I know it's time to get food on the table - oops, in the crate!

Diane-
My 12 week old pup vomited two times at around 4:30 AM this week. Naturally since we lost our other dog to GVD and he had thrown up, I was up with this one until it was time to get the rest of my family up for school. No change in food, like you he had clear, yellowish vomit. I asked my vet and he said sometimes with young puppies if they go too long without eating they vomit. Puppy had no fever, acted completely normal and gobbled up breakfast as usual then promptly did his thing outside. I had fed him a little earlier than usual the night before so he had gone almost 12 hours without eating. Check with your vet though - hope your little guy is ok.

Sounds like stomach bile....I would feed this pup more freequently than every 12 hours. I would feed a pup this young 3x a day if at all possible if not then at least 2x a day. I feed my pups 3x a day until they are at least 6 months old & then feed them 2x a day which is the same as I feed my adult dogs. My pups also get snacks during the day: training treats, recreational marrow bones (I feed a raw diet), so they usually have something in their tummies most of the time. My female has had the same problem; which is one of the reasons that I feed my dogs 2x a day. I also do it because I don't want to put such large quantities of food in my dogs that once a day feeding would require. All dogs will occasionally vomit, but yellow stomache bile is the result of an empty stomach. Good luck with your pup.

Edited to say that I didn't realize that the original post was for a 6 mo old pup. My computer brought up the 2nd post on this topic &not the first. Sorry. I would feed this 6 mo old pup earlier in the am ....he has an empty stomach. Try an hour or so earlier if that is at all possible that may solve the problem. If the vomiting was from the change in diet it would be partially digested food that he is vomiting & not yellow stomach bile.

I am feeding him three times a day now. He gets his first meal around 5AM right after I have my toast and coffee. Then he is fed again by my husband two times during the daytime (not sure of the time - probably around 1PM and again around 5PM). I just thought that it was possibly the wheat products in the "natural" dog treats. The other two times that he has vomited in the 4 months that we have had him, it was accompanied by diarrhea and the vomit smelled like feces (sorry to be graphic). We called the vet that time because he had been wormed and given his last parvo-combo shot the day before. Vet said to bring him in if the vomiting lasted longer than 12 hours or if there was any blood. (he was fine later that day & also the stool specimen came back negative for worms). Also this morning when I cleaned up the vomit, there were 4 pieces of plastic (each one about 3/8 by 1/2 inch in size). This was obviously from part of a plastic cup which he had picked up when we were walking yesterday morning. I have to watch him like a hawk because he wants to sniff or try to pick up everything! We don't have the "leave it" command learned very well yet but still working on it. But that is another whole issue . . . this dog is beyond stubborn!

Oh please keep us posted. I have a vomitting puppy too. (No Fever, Normal Behaviour) But my pup eats everything. He eats dirt and vomits mud. This week he vomited cardboard.

Ironically he eats grass and hay and does not vomit. I have just dropped off all of my Iams Puppy Chow and Dog Treat at the local animal shelter. I am pretty certain that my pup must have an intolerance to WHEAT, although he loves it. At this point we are feeding the NV food (Chicken & Rice) & Yogurt, to try to get a handle on this "IBS". As soon as I can get ahold of the local Kennel I'll be picking up some THK from them.

We are rapidly moving to the Raw Diet with no phase in. If I had a freezer, I'd go to the butcher today. And we'll be making our own liver treats, thanks to a previous post on another discussion topic.

*** sigh *** we love him, but this is as bad as having a SICK Child!

Dear Diane:

Sounds like are pups are soul mates. My puppy finally shat out a jingle bell that he swollowed the other day, and he is on leash or in crate and now periodically muzzled. But as he is a chewing dog, I won't muzzle all the time.

He's stubborn too, but as he is still a young pup, I make sure that I set the ground rules now. Of course, as we move into this next phase of adolescence, who knows what will happen next.

Cheers!

p.s. If the vomit smelled like feces, it probably was feces that he ate. Either his own or some other animals. My pup does that too! YIKES!

Edited by Louanne Manter (02/23/2007 11:58 AM)
Edit reason: added post script from deleted post now that I know how to edit.

Louanne,
I'm almost positive that he has never eaten feces (his or any other dog's). He will occasionally sniff his but has never tried to eat it (we clean it up every day) but if he tries to sniff another dog's while we are walking, I definitely give him a big "leave it". It really irritates me that people don't clean up their dog's poop when they are walking them! The worst mess I've seen recently was several piles of horse poop on the sidewalk! Yuck! I don't walk him in that direction anymore.

if a dog vomits and it smells like feces, it is USUALLY one of two things.

1) they ate some poop, around here frozen poop is considered a delicacy for some reason. It's a wintertime phenomena!

2) they have some kind of bowel obstruction

The first thing is not that serious, gross, but not serious.

bowel obstructions are life threatening, and very common in dogs, especially youngsters that swallow things they shouldn't. I would hope the pieces of plastic that the pup upchucked were culprits.

I unfortunately have experience with both problems.

Cindy,
I had that thought too about the bowel obstruction since that is one of the signs of certain types of bowel obstructions in humans. However, that incident was over a month ago - he has been perfectly normal in the poop department since then. I get a little leery of vets (especially after reading this discussion forum for the past 4 months!). Wondering if they could just do a "simple" x-ray to check for bowel obstruction or is it more involved than that. At the vet's insistence, we were going to take him in first of March for neutering (will be 6 months old) but now I read here that it is too early.