Why Is My Dog Vomiting? Causes and What to Do

Dogs vomit fairly readily, and most of the time it means nothing at all: something eaten too fast, grass, a scavenged item the stomach thought better of.

The difficulty is that a handful of genuinely dangerous conditions begin in exactly the same way, and what separates them is not how much comes up but what comes with it.

Vomiting or regurgitation?

They look similar and mean different things, so it is worth telling them apart before anything else.

• Vomiting is active. There is heaving, abdominal effort, often drooling and restlessness first. The material is usually partly digested, sometimes with bile.
• Regurgitation is passive. Food simply comes back up, often undigested and tube-shaped, with no effort and little warning, usually soon after eating.

Regurgitation points at the oesophagus rather than the stomach and is worth mentioning specifically, because the investigation is different.

The ordinary causes

• Eating too fast, which brings food back up almost immediately, undigested
• Dietary change made abruptly rather than over a week
• Scavenging, the single most common cause in dogs with outdoor access
• Grass eating, which is normal and usually self-limiting
• Motion sickness, particularly in young dogs
• Worms, especially in puppies, sometimes visibly

The serious causes

• Obstruction from a bone, stone, sock or toy. Repeated vomiting, unable to keep water down, painful abdomen. Surgical.
• Parvovirus in unvaccinated dogs, with bloody diarrhoea and rapid collapse.
• Bloat, especially deep-chested breeds: unproductive retching, a swelling abdomen, distress. Fatal within hours.
• Poisoning, where the vomiting is the first sign of something already absorbed.
• Pancreatitis, often after a fatty meal, with pain and a hunched posture.
• Kidney or liver disease, where vomiting is chronic rather than sudden.

Go now, without waiting

Do not wait to see how the night goes if any of these are present:

• Retching repeatedly with nothing coming up, particularly with a swollen or tight abdomen. This is the bloat picture and it is the most time-critical thing on this page.
• Blood in the vomit, fresh red or looking like coffee grounds
• Cannot keep water down for more than a few hours
• Pale, white or tacky gums
• Distended, painful abdomen, or a dog that will not let you touch it
• Lethargy or collapse alongside the vomiting
• Suspected poisoning or a swallowed object
• An unvaccinated puppy, where vomiting plus diarrhoea is parvo until proven otherwise

Safe home care, for an otherwise bright dog

Only if the dog is alert, gums are pink, the abdomen is soft and none of the above applies:

1. Rest the stomach. No food for six to twelve hours in an adult dog. Never fast a puppy without veterinary advice, since their blood sugar drops fast.
2. Offer small amounts of water frequently rather than a full bowl, which usually comes straight back.
3. Reintroduce food small and bland: boiled chicken and plain rice, a spoonful at a time.
4. Return to normal food over two or three days, mixing increasing amounts in.

If vomiting continues past 24 hours, or anything on the red flag list appears, stop managing it at home.

What not to do

• Do not give human anti-sickness or anti-diarrhoea medication. Doses differ and several are harmful to dogs.
• Do not withhold water from a vomiting dog. Dehydration is the real danger; offer small amounts often.
• Do not induce vomiting to "clear it out". If something needs to come up, that is a veterinary decision.
• Do not assume it is worms and simply deworm. Deworming an obstructed dog wastes the hours that mattered.

What helps the vet

Note when it started, how many times, what the material looked like, whether the dog is eating and drinking, whether it is passing faeces, and anything it might have swallowed. If it is a possible obstruction, that history is often more useful than the examination.

The hard part of vomiting is that the ordinary version and the dangerous version begin identically, and the only way to tell early is to have someone look. Owners weigh that up against the cost of a consultation for what is probably nothing, decide to wait until morning, and occasionally lose the animal in the gap.

Every Skeepy Pet HMO plan includes unlimited vet consultations and covers emergencies within the plan's limits, at any vet clinic in Nigeria, so "probably nothing" stops being a bet you have to place.