<p>I have inherited my son’s 67-pound dog (son is in apartment that does not allow pets). I feed him only Purina Dog Chow and no people food, unless you count the crumbs he finds on the floor 
. He stays in the house during the day because he was rehabing from an injury and now is not accustomed to the 100+ temperatures we have had here all summer. Today, he did not eat all day until early evening, then he ate about 1/2 cup of food and threw it up 15 minutes later. This is the third or fourth time this week he has thrown up. Otherwise, he acts and appears healthy. He is 18 months old. I know this sounds gross, but it really isn’t. It just looks like wet dog food. Any dog owners out there with a similar experience? Any special kind of dog food for sensitive tummies?</p>
<p>What else did he eat besides dog food? Are you missing anything?</p>
<p>When our dog was about that age, this happened. The culprit? As they move out of puppyhood and into well, not puppyhood, their food needs to change. The food they need as a puppy is richer than what they need as a little bit older dog. So they tend to throw up. Once we changed the food, everything was better.</p>
<p>Try feeding the dog a better quality food–Wellness, Blue Dog, or even Science Diet.
Make sure the dog always has access to fresh water in his water bowl.
Be careful not to overfeed the dog.</p>
<p>If this doesn’t help, make a visit with the vet to have the dog checked out.</p>
<p>robyrm2, that comment made me chuckle, but I am not missing anything. I even examined it while cleaning it up and did not see any foreign objects. On his brief outside potty breaks, it is possible that he eats june bugs and/or baby geckos, but I have not seen anything unusual in the…er…vomit. He has been fed the dog chow since April with no problems until lately.</p>
<p>My suspicion is, if you take the dog to a vet, one of the first things they will recommend is a change in the dog food. </p>
<p>I learned soooo much about dog food, unfortunately not until the latter years of our dog’s life, but if I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t buy any of the dog food you can find at your local grocery store. There have been a few discussions on CC about pet issues, and I know there are a few posters that are adamant about not giving them the filler-stuff that most major brands are made of. I did my own research, and came to be a believer. But it’s cheaper and easier, so that’s what most people buy.</p>
<p>cnp55 knows a lot about the dog food industry. You might want to ask him how many customers he has come in his store looking to switch and get away from the major brands.</p>
<p>I just bought a new bag of the dogfood a week ago and this week has been the worst. Maybe there is something wrong with that particular batch.</p>
<p>We have a cat who throws up…this can happen with cats. If it were me…if this continues, I would take the pooch to the vet.</p>
<p>You might want to get a small bag of a different kind of food and see if that works better than the batch of food you recently purchased.</p>
<p>Often a dog has trouble adjusting to a new food. When we changed our dogs diet, we mixed the old and new together, then slowly reduced the amount of the old stuff so he could adjust easily. That might help.</p>
<p>Here’s one thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/997213-iams-veterinary-formula-recall-frustration.html?highlight=iams[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/997213-iams-veterinary-formula-recall-frustration.html?highlight=iams</a></p>
<p>and another:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1026323-anyone-else-have-sick-dog.html?highlight=iams[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1026323-anyone-else-have-sick-dog.html?highlight=iams</a></p>
<p>He is due for some vaccinations so I will be taking him to the vet soon anyway. I will ask her about it. Thanks for all your suggestions. I will look into a different brand of dogfood, but there is not a lot of selection in my small town.</p>
<p>You could make your own dog food for a while–one of my relatives does. You have to make sure when you eat something out of a 9 X 13 pan that you are eating a people casserole and not the dog’s food.</p>
<p>When our dog was having vomiting issues, they’d put her on a homemade diet of white rice and chicken, which was very settling to her stomach - it makes sense since rice is part of the BRAT diet when people are sick.</p>
<p>My fear in doing that with such a young age of a dog is that they might get used to it and refuse to eat the purchased food when you return to it! But it’s very gentle on their tummies.</p>
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<p>And he’ll insist on bottled water instead of tap water, LOL!</p>
<p>If it just looks like wet dog food, it can be “regurgitation,” not vomiting (which includes yellowish bile and etc.) Sometimes that’s from eating too fast. Could be the batch. Could be more. But, I wonder: with the heat, is he actually drinking enough water? Especially a big guy. Often, a first suggestion when this occurs is to withhold food, sometimes for a day, but ensure he gets enough water. I am no expert. Just have a dog that goes through this, once in a while.</p>
<p>It does just look like wet dog food; it’s not gross at all. He is a house dog. He is only out in the heat for short periods of time, and he always has plenty of clean water. I frequently empty the water bowl completely before refilling, instead of just adding more water to it. Over a month ago, he was acting sick–lying around and not eating or drinking–and then developed diarrhea, so I took him to the vet. They found he had worms and gave him some worm medicine and some antibiotics. He recovered and was fine for about a month. Now he seems to feel fine, but is regurgitating a lot.</p>
<p>I would take him to the vet. It could be a “blockage” of some kind. I had a lab that literally ate some muslin drapes and until all of the fabric passed, he threw up everything.</p>
<p>My vet recommends brown rice to settle the stomach and controlling the food/water so that it is eaten slowly.</p>
<p>My dog had the same issue as Lookingforward. She would wolf down her food and then regurgitate it soon after. I started feeding her less food more frequently and it stopped.</p>
<p>This doesn’t sound normal and I recommend a vet visit.</p>
<p>If I am ever concerned that the dogs didn’t get enough water and it feeding time, I wet their food. Just an aside.</p>
<p>When evaluating a dog food – look at the ingredient panel, not the fancy claims on the front. I want to see a meat as the first ingredient. Meat meal is OK, but a by-product meal is not OK. I do not want to see any wheat or corn in the ingredients in any form. No corn gluten meal for example. I prefer no fractionated grains – so rice is OK, but rice flour, rice gluten and rice bran are NOT OK. Dogs don’t need all the veggies and fruits that are the common enhancers of the moment, so if they are missing I don’t care.</p>
<p>There’s a big craze about grain-free right now. Dog food needs <em>something</em> to stick it together – which will either be a grain, such as rice, or it will be a different non-grain carb, such as sweet potato, potato, or peas. </p>
<p>If my dog was vomiting often, before the vet visit, I might switch to three tiny meals a day and see if that made a difference. I would also check my ingredient panel and try a better food. There are some better quality foods in the grocery. You might also check your lawn/garden/hardware store as some of those guys are in the dog food business.</p>
<p>I will finish by noting that better quality does cost more, but you should feed less because the food is better quality (meaning more available nutrition) and it’s more or less a wash. Especially if you add in the vet visit.</p>
<p>One final note – cnp is a mom!</p>