# vomiting at night



## aimeec (Jun 23, 2011)

Hello everyone Im new to the board but have lurked and gotten great advice just from reading but I have a question. 
I have a 1 year old german shepherd who has recently been vomiting at night. He will wake up from his sleep and vomit. His vet told me to put yogurt in his food and that worked for a few days until I ran out of yogurt and then that night he started vomiting bile non stop. The vet did a fecal that came back neg. she did a rectal exam, she said it wasn't inflamed, they drew blood and it came back normal. Im so confused because he is doing great during the day but when night time comes around he gets sick. I read another post similar and read that it was the food upsetting the dogs stomach, has anyone heard of Eukenuba causing any issues? He has been on this food for about 3 to 4 months? Before he was on Nutro lamb and rice and he had no problems.

The vet instructed me to not feed him until the morning and to boil him chicken and rice and add yogurt and to give him pepcid every 12-24 hours as needed. And if this diet doesn't work then we will have to do Xrays.


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## Lin (Jul 3, 2007)

Is he vomiting food, or just frothy yellow stomach acid?


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## Lucy Dog (Aug 10, 2008)

If he's just throwing up yellow stuff and nothing else... it's the acid buildup (stomach bile) in his stomach.


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## KAE (Jun 21, 2010)

My dog does the same thing if I give him a bone through the day. Some people have told me not to worry about it, so I've pushed it to the back of my head. I'm curious for some ideas though.


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## Lucy Dog (Aug 10, 2008)

Acid builds up in the stomach when it's empty. The more acid, the more nauseous the dog is going to feel until it finally throws up. That's why it's just yellow foamy stuff (kind of looks like egg yolk). It's just built up stomach acid.

Some things to do is feed more frequently through the day. Instead of 2 meals 12 hours apart... do 3 smaller meals 8 hours apart. This way there's always food in the dogs stomach, so the stomach bile doesn't build up.

Some treats between the meals may also help. The trick is to always have some amount of food in there to keep that bile down.

Also, I've had success with probiotics. Lucy has this problem, but she'll usually do it first thing in the morning. Since i've started her on the probiotics, it's really cut down on the amount she's thrown up. She's done it a couple times, but not nearly like before.


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## ChancetheGSD (Dec 19, 2007)

I agree with Paul about the empty stomach. Chance used to have this problem in the middle of the night or he'd vomit in the early morning. I found feeding him 2-3 times a day and giving him a snack before bed stopped it. I haven't had a problem since he was probably 10 or 11 months old and he's 4 years old now. :thumbup:

Our current routine is like this:

Morning: 1 cup kibble + handful green tripe (Which is GREAT for digestion if you can find it!) and beef mixture
Afternoon: 1 large dog biscuit
Night: 1 cup kibble and occasionally I'll mix in 1-2 tablespoons of canned food.
Right before bed: Another large biscuit

You could also try dividing his daily portions into 3 meals and instead of giving a treat in the middle of the day, give some kibble and then leave the treat for bedtime.

Just if you DO add in treats, be sure to watch the calories in them. For example, a large Milkbone has like 100 calories. Two of them would easily be a half a cup of kibble. So if your dog isn't extremely active like mine, you might want to just consider the 3 kibble meals and then 1 treat.


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## jdh520 (Jun 4, 2011)

My dog used to throw up eukanuba all the time too. We changed and hasn't had that problem since.


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## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

If it is bile, an oatmeal or barley biscuit late in the evening will help, or just feed later at night. This is a common problem.


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## aimeec (Jun 23, 2011)

Thanks everyone, I think ill try spreading his meals out to 3 times a day. He did not vomit last night, I gave him a pepcid around 9-9:30pm like the vet said and he just burped the whole night. I made him his chicken, rice and yogurt this morning and he ate at 9am maybe feed him again at 1pm and then again at 6pm?

The first few times he had some food in his vomit and then after that it was bile. But the nights before it was food in his vomit. That was the first time I had seen him vomit bile. And trust me it was not a fun night, I am pregnant so we had a throwing up marathon going on that night! I don't ever want to pick up dog vomit again. LOL


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## anngie (Mar 24, 2003)

My next to last GSD did that his whole life. My vet used to tell me to give him a Tums. It did seem to help. We never did figure out why he did it. 
It was never anything but yellow bile and then he would be ok for the rest of the night.


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