I've read on this forum that there are other dogs besides mine that throw up in the morning before breakfast, so I wanted to ask if anyone has found a fix for this. My vet said it is called 'morning vomit' - Kasey will occassionally start heaving around 5am and throws up only bile. He started this at a young age - less than a year old. The vet said to give him a pepcid AC along with a small snack right before bed, so we did that and it completely stopped it. She said to try stopping the pepcid in a few months and see if he had outgrown it - we have tried stopping it several times over the past year and just giving him the snack, but he still does it. I feel bad for him cause it is such a strong smelling yucky bile - it must taste horrible and not feel too good!

Does anyone know if there are natural alternatives to antacids like pepcid? I don't like giving him this drug every night (the vet said it's a very benign drug, but I don't know that I believer that!), but I also don't want him to be throwing up - it's yucky for him, and extremely hard to get out of the carpet, not to mention having to pop out of bed at 5am to clean that up.

Any ideas would be appreciated. He eats only raw now (it started while he was on kibble), but that seems to make no difference. The vet said there is no physical thing wrong with him - apparently some dogs just do this. They know nothing is wrong because at 11 months he swallowed a plastic bottle lid and we had to get it endoscoped out so they looked around while doing it and everything is normal. All tests come out normal.

My understanding is that this is caused by the dog having an empty stomach.

Not sure what you're giving as the bedtime snack--maybe try something different? Or perhaps a bit more substantial snack that would keep the stomach fuller longer?

My four dogs all get a bedtime snack of plain yogurt, which they like, and it seems to hold them over til breakfast.

One thing is that I don't want to give an antacid to a dog on raw. His caustic acids are designed for dissolving bones, etc., and are a big part of his resistance to food pathogens (along with the dog's short fast digestive system that doesn't give pathogens much time to colonize, unlike our looooong slow systems)

I'm with Tracy on the snack being more substantial. It sounds like he just needs a couple of hours' worth more food in his stomach, so I'd up the snack size.

I hope that you will post back about your results. This comes up often on the board.

I have had this same thing happen with my just year old GSD.
She has also tried to eat grass in the morning which I attribute to
her stomach being upset from being empty and strong stomach acids that make her vomit.

Two solutions that I know of. Feed later in the evening or a snack in evening as suggested. Also, first thing in the morning I give either plain yogurt or Kefir to help with the empty stomach.
I feed each of my dogs about two tablespoons, before I feed them their breakfast meal.
It has helped a lot and I have not had any more incidents of vomit for a while now. I see no need for antacids, if the yogurt works for you. ( or snack in evening)
Just a note about the Kefir or yogurt, if you have not fed this before you have to slowly add it in small increments as so you don't get a loose or pudding stool.
Let us know if this works out for you Lori!

I will try altering his feeding schedule a bit - maybe I'll split dinner in half and give him the first half earlier and the second half at bedtime.

I would LOVE to be giving him yogurt, but I've tried a couple of times for the probiotic effect, and I'm not convinced that he's not allergic to it - he seems to itch more when he gets dairy. Maybe I'll give it one more shot just be sure! He itches so much from environmental allergies (he started allergy shots a few months ago), that it's probably hard to tell for sure!

Thanks for your help. And Connie - what a great point about the stomach acid and bone digestion. It has been bothering me for a long time that I'm giving him those pepcids. I'll make these changes and post back after we see what happens. Thank you guys!

Connie, would you give bones before bed, or just meat?