I agree with Connie on how complicated this is.

All those symptoms Connie mentioned for food sensitivity/allergy are true, but on the other hand Kasey had those too, and he's not allergic to foods - just flea and environmental. Many dogs with a lot of alergies have very sensitive systems and can have GI issues along with them.

Does he vomit only when he has eaten, so that there is food in the vomit? or is it just bile?

And I learned the hard way, that just because you never see fleas, doesn't mean there aren't an occasional few, and it only takes one bite to drive some dogs crazy! Maybe she can do the white sheet test to make sure?

And I would definitely want some scrapings done to make sure there isn't yeast/bacteria anywhere. Just a tiny bit of yeast sends some dogs itching like crazy too.

Those would be my first 3 questions to get answered.

All great points.

Maybe a white sheet test, which is free and can give at least one immediate answer if it's positive.

Okay I went over the ear thing with mom again and she reiterated that he does not get ear infections. The itching is down in the ear and not the earflaps. She thinks that sometimes it's caused by her letting the ear hair get too long and bother him. He doesn't scratch them raw there just read down inside and they do not make any kind of dirt.

She said he averages vomiting about 4 to 5 times a month. It's just yellow bile no food and there isn't rhyme or reason to it in terms of what he's been eating. She said the last time he threw up was when he got out of bed in the morning.

She uses topical flea prevention.

The other thing that I go against the vet on his vaccinations.

Well, one thing can probably be fixed very easily and should remove a G.I. symptom (which removes one of the pointers, for me, to a possible food sensitivity, although doesn't rule it out*):

Bile vomiting on an empty stomach (first thing in the a.m. is most common) can be helped with a bedtime snack so the stomach doesn't get so empty overnight. A bit of supper can be saved for this; I use protein with a little fat, such as, for this guy, a quarter of a hard-boiled egg, which is a low- or no-oxalate food.



"The other thing that I go against the vet on his vaccinations."

Ohhhhh, right. Annual boosters?




I would do the white sheet test. It's free, it's simple, and it could yield another clue. (Good work on the bile vomiting detection, BTW! )

Here's one thread about how "no evidence of fleas" and "uses prevention" don't mean "no fleas," especially if a dog is hypersensitive (remembering that flea saliva allergy and environmental/inhalant allergy are the top two dog allergies):
http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=29702&page=1
(The first post sums it up. )

And here, on a new thread, the poster finds flea dirt (the dog's dried blood from the flea's poop) by doing the white sheet test:
http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=33020&page=2 (Scroll down to fifth post)




*
I'm not a health professional; all JMO!

Yes, that bile vomiting is exactly what Kasey did until Connie told me to feed him a before bedtime snack - it stopped instantly and he hasn't done it in 5 years! If the dog does it in the afternoon, then you could divide the meals so he has a little snack at lunch time too.

So if his poops are normal, and making sure his stomach doesn't get too empty stops the vomiting, then I'd start thinking more about flea/environmental allergies than food allergy.

Ditto on doing the white sheet test. I swore we didn't have fleas either, but there was a small amount of flea dirt on that sheet!

bentley has stopped the vomiting with trying to keep food in his stomach.

On a negative note, there is some serious health issues going on now that aren't with the dog, so I will be keeping on as best as I can with Mom and Bentley but it may be partially on hold for too much work as the others take precedence. I will be back on this and we both thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the help and the generosity with the time to someone you don't know.

If there is someone (vet tech, groomer, anyone) who could take and bathe him, that would be a help. It would help remove external parasites as well as pollen, dust mites, etc., that are common environmental allergens.

That could help temporarily and not be something your mother needs to do herself.

Good luck, Julie.

Mom does bathe him about once a week. I don't see that changing no matter how busy she gets. I am working on getting her to do the white sheet test.

I hope you'll pass along our concern and care about her whole household. It's tough to have illness surrounding you, and it doesn't make it easier that one is a dog. Maybe harder, because they can't talk and say "take care of the human; I'm OK for now."

Thank you. Laverne has been diagnosed with cancer and is having surgery tomorrow, along with a biopsy of spots on his liver that we can only pray isn't cancer that has already spread.

Bentley is eating really well, although she says he has to be convinced to "get started".

Is there any nutrients that he just absolutely has to have RIGHT NOW? or at his age, is it ok to hold it right here for now?J