how long do i wait to feed my dog after vomiting
What to Feed Dogs After Theyve Vomited
Dogs vomit for many reasons. Some are life-threatening, others are just a mild annoyance, and a whole bunch of causes fall somewhere in between. But once your dog is on the road to recovery, youll wonder what to feed them so they dont start vomiting again.
In this article, well look at what and how to feed dogs at home after theyve vomitedand even more importantly, when you should head to the veterinarians office instead.
Should You Feed a Dog After They Vomit?
The short answer? No, whether its an emergency situation or not.
Emergency Cases of Vomiting in Dogs
Your dog may need to be seen by a vet right away, and trying home treatments first or giving your dog some food could be dangerous. If any of the following apply to your dog, call your veterinarian or a veterinary emergency hospital immediately for advice:
Your dog is very young or old, or has a health problem that could make them especially vulnerable todehydration, inadequate nutrition, and other effects of vomiting
Your dog has vomited at least three times within 24 hours
Your dog is trying to vomit but nothing is coming up
There is blood in your dogs vomit
Your dog seems weak, disoriented, or in pain
Your dog has severediarrheaor other worrisome symptoms in addition to vomiting
Mild Cases of Vomiting in Dogs
On the other hand, if your otherwise healthy adult dog has just vomited once or twice and seems to feel pretty good, its possible they just ate something unusual or have a mild case of gastroenteritis and will feel better soon.
In this case, you dont need to rush to the vet, but the first step in treating mild vomiting in a healthy adult dog is to stop feeding them. Putting food into an upset tummy is irritating and makes it more likely that vomiting will continue.
Take your dogs food away for 1224 hours, and dont give them any treats or table scraps. Leave water out for your dog to drink, but if they tend to tank up, keep the water level low to encourage them to drink small amounts frequently.
However, there are some dogs that should never go without food. Young puppies can becomehypoglycemicif they dont eat frequently enough.
Dogs that are on insulin fordiabetesor have tumors in their pancreas (insulinomas) are also at high risk for hypoglycemia if they dont eat regularly. Call your veterinarian for advice before withholding food for any dog that isnt healthy and at least 1 year old.
What to Feed Your Dog After Fasting
After the fasting period (if appropriate), you can use food as treatment if your dogs vomiting is acute and mild. Acute vomiting starts suddenly and doesnt last for more than a few daysfood poisoning or stomach bugs like norovirus are common examples of acute vomiting in people.
Mild vomiting doesnt significantly affect a dogs overall well-being or occur more than two or three times in 24 hours. If you didnt know your dog vomited, you might not think anything was wrong.
So your dog has acute and mild vomiting, and youve withheld food for 12 to 24 hours. Now what? Start reintroducing food gradually. Think of how you might start eating after youve been vomiting: You wouldnt immediately order yourself a pizza; youd probably start with toast or a few crackers and see how it goes. You want to do something similar for your dog.
Start by offering your dog a small amount of bland food thats easy to digest. Your options are:
Homemade Food
Mix the following:
Boiled, white-meat chicken (no skin or bones) or lean hamburger meat
Cooked white riceor boiled and mashed potatoes
While these recipes are not nutritionally complete and balanced for long-term feeding, they are safe for dogs to eat for a few days.
Over-the-Counter Food
These highly digestible diets, easy on a dogs stomach, are offered by reputable pet food manufacturers:
Prescription Diets
Most veterinarians will have at least a few cans of prescription, highly digestible dog food in stock. These are two good options:
Your Dogs Regular Food
If your dog is on a special diet or you simply cant get your hands on a highly digestible dog food, slowly start your dog back on their regular diet.
Wet foods are generally a better option than kibble, at least in the short term. Wet foods tend to be more digestible than dry, and the extra water will help keep your dog hydrated.
How Much to Feed Your Dog Each Day After Vomiting
How you start feeding your dog again is just as important as what you feed them. This feeding guide will help you gradually transition back to a normal diet for a dog that has been vomiting.
Day 1
Day 2
Offer your dog 10% of their normal meal size. Wait a few hours.
If your dog has not vomited, offer them 25% of their normal meal size. Wait a few hours.
If your dog has not vomited, offer them another 25% of their normal meal size. Wait a few hours.
If your dog has not vomited, offer them 50% of their normal meal size.
Day 3
Offer your dog 50% of their normal meal size. Wait a few hours.
If your dog has not vomited, offer them another 50% of their normal meal size. Wait a few hours.
If your dog has not vomited, offer them a normal meal size.
Day 4
Day 5 and on
Call your veterinarian if at any point during this process your dog starts vomiting again, wont eat, or their symptoms are getting worse.
Is There a Prescription Diet for Dogs With Chronic Vomiting?
There are prescription diets for many conditions that cause chronic vomiting. Once a dogs vomiting has continued for more than a couple of weeks, it is considered chronic rather than acute. Many health problems can cause chronic vomiting in dogs, including:
Diet plays a part in managing many of these diseases. For example:
Dogs with chronic vomiting often dont have a great appetite. You may find it tempting to prepare your dog home-cooked meals, but this can be dangerous if it goes on too long.
Most recipes for home-cooked diets are not nutritionally complete and balanced, even for healthy dogs.
Add in a chronic illness, and preparing a healthy diet for long-term feeding becomes almost impossible without the input of a veterinary nutritionist.
Its vital for dogs that have been vomiting to get the right nutrition. Your veterinarian can help you pick the best food based on the specifics of your dogs case.
Featured image:Chalabala/iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images
WRITTEN BY
Jennifer Coates, DVMVeterinarian
Dr. Jennifer Coates is an accomplished veterinarian, writer, editor, and consultant with years of experience in the fields of veterinary...
My Dog Just Yakked! What to Feed Dogs After Vomiting
Oh no! Its that dreaded, Gluck, gluck, gluck sound your dog makes when hes about to barf. If your dog is like many dogs, it comes at 3:07 am, and its horrible. Still, hes yakked and now youre cleaning up your dogs vomit and wondering what to do next. If youre wondering about what to feed your dog after vomiting, read on!
My dog threw up! Why?
If yourdog throws up, there are several reasons he did so. Most of the time, an upset stomach makes dogs throw up. Maybe he got into the cat box and had one too many Tootsie Rolls. Maybe he found a dead delicacy in the yard when he was checking his pee-mail outside.
At its core, dog vomiting is likely the result of an upset doggy tummy. Often, upset stomachs are the result of eating something poor and poor gut health. Dogs are known for eating things that pet parents consider gross or inedible including foreign objects. They will throw up here or there and thatll be that. It might just be an isolated incident if your pup continues eating with normal bowel movements after throwing up. And there is adifference between throwing up and regurgitating.Be sure you know it! The food expelled during regurgitation is usually undigested and without bile. But vomit is partially digested and has some bile. Your dog will almost always try to eat regurgitated food. If your dog throws up fairly regularly, though, it may be something else. He could be struggling with a gastric obstruction or have a gut condition like inflammatory bowel disease. Something metabolic like liver or kidney health may be off and if he regularly vomits, seems lethargic or not himself, displays other abnormal behavior, has trouble breathing, or your dogs abdomen looks bloated and is painful, youll want to seek medical attention and check with your vet immediately to investigate further.
How does good dog gut health stop my dog throwing up?
Like we said, unless there is another underlying condition like bacterial infections, gastrointestinal obstruction, toxin exposure, liver or kidney disease, your dogs vomiting probably because his gut is imbalanced. Your dogs gut is a thriving microbiome full of bacteria. Just like in humans, theres good bacteria that comes in the form of healthy and beneficial probiotics and there are harmful bacteria that if left unchecked, can grow out of control and throw your dog into Dysbiosis. If your dogs gut is imbalanced, hes probably not getting enough nutrients out of the food youre feeding him. This imbalanced microbiome is irritated by something the dog ategrass, mulch, that delicious tissue you left in your bathroom trash can. This irritation is why he throws upso he can get rid of whats irritating him. Good gut health is the key to helping stop your dogs vomiting episodes.
What to feed dog after vomiting?
If your dog threw up because his tummy was upset, you may want to give his stomach the opportunity to settle. There are plenty of things you can gently feed to let their stomach and digestive system have some recovery time. You will probably want to withhold food for a few hours after the dogs vomiting incident before you feed him just to give his stomach some recovery time.
A popular recommendation from many vets is to offer them small amounts of bland foods such as boiled chicken, cooked white rice, or boiled potatoes. Youll want to make sure you boil skinless chicken and do not add any salt or other seasoningsyoure going for bland food that wont irritate their tummies anymore. If they do well with that, you can continue to offer their regular food mixed with chicken and rice. Gradually wean him from the chicken and rice in smaller and smaller servings until hes back to his full serving of regular food and not vomiting any more. Sometimes What to feed dog after vomiting? is best answered with no food after all. Withholding food and simply offering them some bone broth to replenish their fluids and offer gut-healing help can be all you need to do for a few meals before you get back to your dogs normal food. You can also consider limiting the amount of water as excessive drinking can cause more vomiting. However, you will also want to keep your pup hydrated. To prevent dehydration, you can offer some ice cubes to slurp on which will prevent drinking water too much or too fast while keeping him hydrated.
One of our favorite broths for dogs is Brutus Bone Broth. Bone broth is soothing on your dogs stomach and even without an appetite, theyre likely to be enticed by the delicious smell while their digestive tract can recover and stop your dog vomiting..
How can I prevent my dog from throwing up?
As we said, the most common reason you see your dog vomits is that his stomach is irritated. If your dogs gut is healthy, hes less likely to throw up because of stomach irritation. And the best way to keep his gut healthy is to give himBernies Perfect Poop.
Perfect Poop has high-quality fiber that helps your dogs food go through his intestines at the perfect speed for optimal nutrient absorption. That fiber and optimal nutrient absorption can help ease diarrhea or constipation (which sometimes can cause an upset stomach) and avoid serious illness. Perfect Poop also has prebiotics and probiotics that will help his imbalanced gut get healthy and reduce dogs vomit. A balanced gut is what will help keep your dog from vomiting if he eats something that doesnt agree with him. Inulin is the main prebiotic and it acts like a fertilizer to keep the good bacteria in your dogs gut growing, healthy and happy.
Probiotics reduce the inflammation and irritation in your dogs gut and that reduces the need for your dog to wake you up with that retching sound and finding dog vomits all over the floor. The best news is that feeding your dog Bernies Perfect Poop every day doesnt just help stop them from vomiting. It also helps ensure they have maximum nutrition and fuel, and it keeps their guts as healthy as they can be. Good dog gut health is where your dogs good overall health starts and its as easy as sprinkling Bernies delicious Miscanthus grass bits on your dogs food each meal. So if youre wondering what to feed your vomiting dog, consider feeding Bernies Perfect Poop BEFORE they start vomiting. Unless you really like that Gluck, gluck, gluck, sound waking you up in the middle of the night?
