This is Marco, my 18 month old male rottie. I asked here several months ago about him occasionally vomiting this milky looking substance. It was very random. I was told, I believe by Connie that some dogs will do this if they go too long without eating, so I started feeding twice a day instead of once. That didn't seem to change it. Someone at our club suggested that dogs will do that if they've eaten something they're not supposed to. He is never unsupervised but he constantly wants to eat things off the ground so I started being very adamant about the leave it command which took a while but it finally stopped him from doing that but he still would have this vomiting issue from time to time. There seemed to be no pattern to it. I had been giving him elk antlers so I tried stopping that and I thought that might be the problem because he hadn't vomited for a few months until a couple weeks ago he did it again. Then he did it about a week ago and now he just did it again a few minutes ago and this time he seemed to almost pass out. His body sort of locked up, he fell over on his side, then immediately got back up and acted like he was perfectly normal.

After posting I realized one thing. I guess I was instinctively holding his fur saver while he was vomiting because as soon as he started I rushed him out the door to try to keep it from happening inside. Maybe I unintentionally cut off his air while he was vomiting?

I recall back in March, maybe? .... a thread about eating rocks or sticks? I don't remember bile vomiting coming up, but it certainly sounds like something I might have mentioned. (Some dogs have this in the very early morning unless they start to get something in their stomachs at bedtime, IME.)

So it's never real vomitus with food in it? Always the pale frothy substance?

Did he see a vet for this? What was concluded, if anything?


Does he ever have a head tilt, or maybe walk erratically (maybe in circles)?


There's no ear infection you know of? You have looked in there with a flashlight? No odor, debris, slime?


I'm just bringing up questions I would want to have the answers ready for at the vet's office.

I believe that having him fall down like this means he needs you to call the vet asap. I think that there's more than one possibility, but that they would all need the vet.

Give me a few minutes and I'll find you material on ear infection, vestibular syndrome, etc.

I'm not a health professional.

He was basically trying to eat anything he could get in his mouth off the ground. I was constantly removing things from his mouth until I got the leave it command down.

Yes, always the frothy substance.

He hasn't seen a vet for this because it stopped for a couple months.

I'm quite sure it's not an ear infection because I've dealt with that alot with two previous dogs that had cronic ear infections so I know what to look for as far as that goes.

I've never noticed a head tilt and he's definitely never walk around in circles erratically or erratically at all.

He is extremely highly food driven. Is it possible that I'm just not feeding him quite enough because the only pattern I can think of is that's it's always towards the end of the day just before it's time to eat his night time food. He doesn't seem skinny at all but he is by far the biggest rottie I've ever had at 18 months. He's right at 90lbs. I'm feeding 2-2 1/2 cups morning and again at night.

Kory, here's some material.

I know you said he has no unsupervised opportunity to ingest toxins, but I'm including a link about that too.

I'm not a health professional, so giving you these links isn't meant to suggest that they contain answers for your dog .... just to say that there are possibilities that would need to be addressed asap.

http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/dog-falling-down

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/06/04/canine-vestibular-disease.aspx

http://blog.seattlepi.com/accesforpethealth/2009/09/24/the-case-of-the-falling-over-dog-why-an-accurate-and-complete-history-is-so-important/

http://www.highplainsvet.com/ask-the-vet/vestibular-attack

 Quote: Kory Fox

He was basically trying to eat anything he could get in his mouth off the ground. I was constantly removing things from his mouth until I got the leave it command down.

Yes, always the frothy substance.

He hasn't seen a vet for this because it stopped for a couple months.

I'm quite sure it's not an ear infection because I've dealt with that alot with two previous dogs that had cronic ear infections so I know what to look for as far as that goes.

I've never noticed a head tilt and he's definitely never walk around in circles erratically or erratically at all.

He is extremely highly food driven. Is it possible that I'm just not feeding him quite enough because the only pattern I can think of is that's it's always towards the end of the day just before it's time to eat his night time food. He doesn't seem skinny at all but he is by far the biggest rottie I've ever had at 18 months. He's right at 90lbs. I'm feeding 2-2 1/2 cups morning and again at night.

Still, falling down for me takes it into the "call the vet" category.

Thanks for the links Connie. Based on what I read, and that this is the first fall ever,and I'm 100% sure he didn't get into any kind of toxin and the other possibilities don't sound critical so unless I'm missing something I don't think he needs to go to the vet immediately. I think I'm going to wait until Tuesday so that I don't have to pay an emergency vet to check him out and run a bunch of tests.

Any chance these are seizures?

Tresa, while the vomiting has been happening from time to time this is the first fall/fainting episode. It was so quick I'm very confident it was not a seizure although that did cross my mind.

Does this dog have extreme head type, almost bulldog?

Does he really snore?