Hey all.

Wondering if I could get some of your advice...

I have an 8 1/2 month old Beagle. He's been raw fed since he was 7 weeks old. No vaccines (even rabies).

Recently he's been throwing up, usually in the morning, this yellowish liquid. No food in there, just liquid. He gets this contractions in his stomach and then throws up.

I tried to look for a pattern as to when this occurs (what did he eat the day before, etc). This happened yesterday morning, and the day before he had some turkey drumstick. Before that he had eaten chicken for about 5 days.

Ok, so yesterday during the day he ate the other drumstick and this morning he threw up again!

The turkey was fine. It was fresh from the supermarket and the due date was not for another couple of days.

I remember that before these last two incidents, he threw up in the morning about a week and a half before. Curiously, he had been eating chicken for a couple of days (since he's just 25 lbs, a whole chicken lasts a couple of days) and the day I changed his diet (this time it was rabbit), bam, next morning he threw up.

So, could this be something related to the change in diet?

I don't feed vegetables. I give him fruits sometimes (blueberries, apple and bananna) and I feed an egg 6 times a week in the morning where I put his Salmon Oil + Vitamin E + Apple Cider Vinegar). He eats in the afternoon.

That's about all I can think of. Thanks in advance for your help.

I notice my Dutch and my older Bloodhound do this if I feed a lot of meat and bone without cottage cheese or yogurt or other probiotic....although they throw up food and then the bile...meat changing does not seem to bother them.

How is he acting otherwise?


Oh yeah, any new pics of the cutest beagle ever?

Hey Carol!

Ruy's great. The throwing up doesn't seem to be holding him back, lol. I've got my hands full at the moment with him. Been teaching him the recall command recently.

Haven't been taking any pictures recently since I've been trying to get some video of him. Have a couple of great videos of him chasing and arroing at some big iguanas, but I've got to find a way to make it digital so I can post them up at youtube.

I promise to take a picture of him in the next couple of days, though. I'll make sure you're the first one to see them.



All the best!

Hey Richard, glad to see you and Ruy! Was wondering where you guys were.

I still have a turkey drumstick in my freezer from a year ago (forgot it was in there - think I'll throw it out - it's due ). I had bought it for when I got Lear but wasn't sure about feeding it as it has those very fine flat type bones going through it. I posted about it here and I believe it was Connie that said she wouldn't give turkey sticks.

Other than that, I don't like the sound of the yellow bile because of prior experience. Perhaps you might want a blood test done. It's probably nothing, and NOT to scare you but that's what my last dog that was 9 years old started doing and it turned out to be kidney disease. She was much older of course and I doubt anything like that for Ruy. Maybe turkey just doesn't sit well with him. It's got stuff chicken doesn't have, maybe that could be the problem and his system doesn't like it.

I sure missed seeing that cute little guy's face. Glad you guys are well.

Fellow Beagle owner. Lucy also seems to do this on occasion. For her it's 1-2 times / month though and it is the same yellowish liquid that you describe.

I believe it's just an empty stomach in the morning. I moved her nighttime feeding back from 6 - after 8 pm after she had done this a few days in a row and it seemed to stop it.

Did you say he eats his 2nd meal in the afternoon? Beagle are voracious eaters as you know and with raw his food get's processed even more quickly.

If your schedule will allow it, you might try to push this back until a few hours before bedtime to see if it helps.

My female sometimes upchucks bile and/or phlemb (sp?) in the morning.
It's like her stomach has gotten too empty and acidy.
It doesn't seem to be an issue, vet said they just sometimes do this.
As long as her appetite is good and she's not throwing up her meals, or blood, it's not something to worry about.
But, that's my dog, and what my vet said.
If you're worried about it, I'd take him to your vet.
Yes, he is a very cute beagle, too!

Starbuck has done the same thing several times.

The last time it coincided with her eating a couple long scrap of fabric. She eliminated the fabric later that afternoon and it was not a pretty site.

It only slowed her down for a couple minutes.

She is still eating 3 times a day (morning about 8, afternoon about 12 and evening about 5).

I assume it is just an upset stomach. But if she did it more than once in a while I'd take her to the vet.

Are you sure there isn't ANYTHING coming up besides bile? Oscar will throw up around 4 in the morning if a chunk of bone from dinner doesn't agree with him. He chucks up bile AND the offending bone - which is anything from a little tiny shard of beef bone (could be quite small), to an entire chix thigh bone! He eats 2 meals a day, but I've never seen him throw up like that at a different time - only at the crack of dawn... this happens maybe once every few months, but it's not a big deal for him. I also stopped feeding turkey legs because they seemed to be the worst offenders in this regard... those bones are big and TOUGH!

I seem to remember Jennifer Coulter's dog having an issue with a similar type of unexplainable early morning throwing up - can't remember what the outcome was but it may have had to do with adjusting feeding times, as was mentioned. You could try to PM her...

Cheers,
~Natalya

 Quote:

I seem to remember Jennifer Coulter's dog having an issue with a similar type of unexplainable early morning throwing up - can't remember what the outcome was but it may have had to do with adjusting feeding times, as was mentioned. You could try to PM her...

At about 8-12 months old my pup had a SERIOUS case of the morning bile barfies. 5 days a week sometimes between 4-6:30 am. Occasionally before dinner.

The empty stomach thing seemed to play a role. If he went to the door dry heaving, and I fed him (5 am), he would not barf. On the advice of my vet and various raw feeders, I tried feeding him some food right before bed. It seemed to help somewhat, but did not solve it completely. I also tried going to plain chicken for a while, fat removed and added some probiotics, no real change.

I was somewhat worried that he had some pancreas problem or something. Tests revealed nothing. Energy levels and appitite levels always normal.

At the end of my rope (wanting to sleep through the night) I went and saw a well known vet in BC that had been reccomended to me by others from my breed. She is big on raw feeding and homeopathy. I took my dog to her (7 hrs from my town, but on the way from a course we were at). I answered some prelim questions in advance of my appointment. She spent quite a while checking him out and hearing all about him, health, temperment, work. She did more bloodwork to double check a few things. In the end she came up with some homeopathic remedy (which I considered vodoo at the time).

Well, could be a total conink-e-dink, but he stopped having that barfing problem right away. I have never used homeopathy since, but it did open my mind some.

Now he will still very occasionally barf 12-24 hrs after eating something with a harder bone that didn't quite digest (like was previously mentioned in Natalya's post).

He will also sometimes barf bile if he is waiting to be fed at his feeding spot and he is not fed. I no longer feed him extra before bed, just feed normally twice a day. I also feed a huge variety of raw foods now, back when he was barfing a lot, I thought everything form pork to venison to turkey was the culprit. Now he handles them all just fine.

I don't know why he got into that cycle, but once it was broken, life was back to normal. I don't think it is uncommon for dogs to barf bile occasionally, but if it is becoming regular, I would try stop it before it is big deal.

My suggestion would be similar to the advice given to me and to you already on the board.

-See a vet if you become concerned, to rule out other causes(raw freindly prefered).

-Try to keep the diet simple for a while, to quiet diegestion. I would reccomend chicken, low fat and maybe the easily digestable bone parts. (necks, backs) I would almost reccomend ground bone in chicken for a bit. I would at least stay away from turkey drumsticks for a bit. (big bones for your small dog with a bad tummy). If you want to do turkey, try necks perhaps? If you are just feeding necks and backs, remember to add a bit of meat only to get the bone to meat ratio correct.

-try some probiotics (capsuls or plain yougurt)

-when feeding a hard boney meal I sometimes give a bit of slippery elm bark to coat the digestive tract as a preventative. Canned pumkin could work as well maybe.

-I would try adding some tripe, as for some reason I still beleive it can help promote good gut bugs.

-If you get really desperate, try to find a homepathic vet (can't hurt). One with experience, prefrably with references, and one not wanting to sell you a bunch of supplememnts.

I never really discovered the cause, but he has been fine for over a year and a half now. If you are feeding only once a day, you may want to try breaking it into twice, just to rule out the empty stomach thing.

Has the dog been on anitibiotics lately?

Keep me posted, always curious..

Hey. I think the board was down?

Anyway, the empty stomach theory sounds pretty convincing. I feed him in the early afternoon and he goes with an empty stomach the rest of the day. Here I was trying to replicate what they would do in the wild (1 meal a day). Since he's just 25 lbs, it's hard to divide his food in two meals.

I think I'll move the 'egg + goodies' meal to nightime, after we return from our evening walk. That way he won't go that many hours with an empty stomach. His breath won't be so nice, though. That Salmon Oil smell stays for a while, yuk.

I wasn't too worried about it, but you're always concerned when your dog does something like this, specially if it's on your bed sheets. I'll wait a couple of days and see what happens.

Thanks for all the responses. I'll keep you guys posted.