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I’m serious here . . . every day, sometimes several times a day, my dog finds something to eat that will make him hurl. Usually it’s grass or leaves or some other plant thing – which I guess is a natural thing to do. But it’s every day! He’s not skinny (actually about 10% overweight), looks healthy, has a barky little temprament, does have some luxating patella (bad knee) issues, but seems a normal, feisty little terrier mix. Of course I could take him to the vet, but thought I’d ask the experts first.
Can a dog be bulimic?
What’re his bowel movements like?
It’s possible that if he’s constipated, he will strain so hard to make a bowel movement that he vomits, it’s very common with dogs. There exist many at-home remedies you can try — first one I’d reccomend is just adding half a teaspoon of Metamucil (or any type of psyllium) to your dog’s food twice a day.
If laxatives show no progress within a couple days, try just adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil to his food once every couple days… this should lubricate his intestines.
If after a week he shows no progress, take him to a vet — there are veterinary-prescribed laxatives that will do the trick, but most of the time it can be cured at home.
If constipation isn’t the case? Honestly… some domesticated animals can just be stupid. 🙂
My cats? Eat pennies, lint, mud, string (I’ve had to pull whole strings out from their throats)… anything absolutely inedible that they can find on the floor. Of course they puke their inedible findings daily, and immediately proceed to eat their own puke.
Thanks for the ideas, but all other process are normal. He’s high strung, so when he’s super agitated things move more quickly, shall we say . . .
We were hoping that since we “rescued” him, and he’s a mutt, that all of the pure-bred-gene issues would not be there. But he seems to have all of them – grrr.
I’ll do some more research as well . . . i don’t want to pay the vet $50 to tell me he’s just a bulimic, nervous doggie – when that’s what I suspect the problem is.
Bulimia isn’t something, that as far as I know, can affect dogs. It’s a mental disorder stemmed from years of evolution and social structure.
For animals whose brain capacity is no more advanced than eat, sleep, poop, “HOO BOY CHASE SQUIRREL/STICK/EMPTY AIR!”, thinking “God, I’m fat” isn’t something that crosses their minds.
Failing that, it could just be some sort of stomach or digestive problem… but dogs can’t voluntarily make themselves vomit.
Actually I don’t think it’s natural for your dog to be eating grass etc.
I remember when ours did though and when we took her to the vet he stated that she was needing more vegetables in her diet.
Have you have ever had too much fast food then craved found yourself craving something cold, crisp, and nutritionally clean – something like a salad.
Your dog’s maybe feeling the same way ie compensating for a better word of vegetables in his diet. But prolonged grazing is also a sign that he has a tummy upset as dog’s know that getting grass will make them sick. The vet gave us some diet advice and after she was on more veg after a while she was fine.
Hope that helps and he gets better soon!
Thank you both! Yeah – I know that dogs can’t in those terms, but he may just feel better or something after he hurls . . . dunno – it’s so weird! And Sarah – yes!!! I know exactly what you mean. We feed him a vet-recommended diet which is just the dry food with a few biscuits (dog) a day. Other than that he sometimes gets a fry or piece of cereal or something little that drops on the floor, but we just don’t feed him from the table. This has been going on for over a year (he’ll be 3 in July) and when we’ve mentioned it to the vet he seems to shrug it off since simple, usual tests show the dog is healthy. Maybe I toss him a few carrots tonight and see if that helps settle things. But I do remember that grapes and tomatoes are toxic to dogs so DON’T feed those!
Just so folks weren’t stressing about this issue :p I wanted to let y’all know that we think his purging was because of him chewing on water bottles. He has fragile teeth and if we give him bones or any other normal dog toy to chew on, his teeth break. What a winner of a dog, I know. Anyway, the bottles seem to fill that chewing-need he has without costing us for dental work and the vet said it’d be alright . . . but apparently he ingests just a bit of the plastic which upsets his tummy. This is based on the observation that more water bottles chewed on a certain day leads to more hurling the next day. So, put your minds at ease; we have restricted the number of bottles he has and things seem to be better.
Just thought you’d wanna know.
And with that, another mystery is solved. Thanks, PolarBear. You’d make a good addition in Computer Support.
baller32;228288 wrote:I’m not sure if a dog can be bulimic.You are so right! A dog can’t have that disorder. And truly it was insensitive of me to put it in those terms. I apologize for the misnomer. My real concern was that this dog was purposely throwing up and I couldn’t figure out why. I hope we have it solved now though . . . limiting his bottle consumption.
Thank you for the correction. I apologize for the insensitivity.
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