Pup unwell. Any vets or knowledgeable folk about?

[Focusfocus]

Hello all,

DPup is rather unwell. She's a 7.5 month old Shih Tzu x Bichon Frise who has had day long diarrhea at 9 weeks but nothing apart from that. Up to date with all vaccines, wormed last in February and spayed in December. She eats about 100 gms of a grain free kibble twice a day. Treats are occasional and include bits of liver or cheese. She has access to our back garden all day and garden has plenty of grass and who knows what might be bad for her. The day before she chewed up her puppy pee pad which we give when we leave her alone and we can home to find fine pee pad internal coating powder and fibres all over the house and her snout. But she was fine the day before yesterday and fine yesterday all day.

Yesterday, at 8 pm she vomited. Yellow greenish puke with bits of liver she had eaten. Then went on to vomit 7 times in under 2 hours. We called the emergency vet at 11 pm and took her near midnight. Stopped car on the way as she pukwd on the way again. Once at the vets she showed no lethargy and became extremely disobedient and jumpy. They said temp ok, pulse ok, gums and skin show no dehydration signs, palpated thoroughly thrice over and couldn't find a thing. Prescribed Zantac twice a day by oral syringe and a rehydration fluid powder thingy to be mixed in our water. With old food for a day, give access to fresh water with the oral powder dissolved in it. Fine.

DH and I made camp out beds downstairs to observe her at night. She has been out every hour all night from midnight till now. Vomiting yellowish foamy stuff every hour. She is quite weak after a total of some fifteen vomits. No poo. She is drinking okayish, will occasionally sip her oral fluid thingy water, but has had two big drinks all night from her normal plain water.

We've made an urgent appointment at vets and taking her this morning, we are scared stiff. I am also pregnant with first baby so my morning sickness isnt helping anything.

Anyone knows what it might be? I keep thinking what if she's swallowed shards of glas or nails or some such horrendous thing and it's ripping her up inside. Oh god. Someone please tell me there might still be an okay solution to this?

Also does petplan cover out of hours vet fees? (The least of our concerns at the moment, frankly)

Meant to type withhold food not with old food.

Yes, petplan will cover emergency fees.

It won't be glass or similar; if it were, there would be blood in the vomit or stool.

It could be a simple but nasty stomach bug - you've not mentioned poo though. What's that like?

My immediate thought is an internal blockage of some sort - possibly from the pee pad she's eaten. Does it have a plastic backing?

Hi Focus first of all - well done it sounds as if you've done all the right things - please try and relax.
If she's not producing any poo at all and hasn't responded to the medical care given so far, I'd be wondering if perhaps she might have swallowed some of her pee pad which might be blocking her intestines. I think a follow up visit to the vet is needed. Please re-emphasise the lack of poo so they can check her for a blockage. Alternatively it may just be a severe gastritis that needs more time/drugs. Either way both of these conditions are very treatable and whilst I know this is scary for you, your vet will see cases like this every day and be very experienced in this, so please be reassured she's in good hands

Our male dog got like the a while ago- he'd picked up something down the park from other dogs. He was given some tablets from the vets and told to starve him for the rest of the day and then in the morning give him plain boiled rice & chicken for the next 2 days. He was eating fine and not throwing after a day of chicken & rice.

There are many many reasons why dogs vomit like this and the vast majority are very treatable. Give the vet all the details you've written here. If you have the packaging from the puppy pad she ate, take it along too, just in case.
Petplan will cover out of hours fees normally, including if she is kept in. She may need to stay in for fluids but only your vet will know. Take your insurance documents with you. I think you can download a claim form from Petplan's website.
Good luck!

Thanks guys. They've kept her in to give fluids and do xray to check for foreign body. If nothing found will to a ultrasound.

I've got a baby growing in my womb and thought nothing else would matter. Oh how she matters. My little baby, I want to wrap her up to my chest.

Hope they get to the cause of her vomiting and she's better soon.

Vet called. She has been receiving IV fluids and hasn't vomited in the last three hours and "looks alert,bright and quite sweet actually".

He did two x rays. He says that neither the lateral nor the dorsal (?) views have convinced him that there is an obstruction. He feels there is one area where he thinks there could,might be something, but he has consulted two other colleague vets whose interpretation of the images is also that they can't tell either way if there is something. They say they could do investigative surgery but they really don't want to because they can't be convinced there is something there. In the meantime she has been heavily, strongly palpated all through upper and lower abdomen and nothing from temperature of the skin to the actual palpating is showing them any object.

So the decision is to X-ray again at 5 pm to see if what he thinks unconvincedly could, may, might be something is still there on lateral and too down views before they jump to conclusions. He didn't seem worried. But of course we are.

We laid laminate flooring last weekend and sent her away at the time, but are now scared of she found nails somewhere which she may have swallowed. Or shards of concrete somewhere. But nails would show up on an X-ray right?

Nails would show up really clearly on an xray. However soft pee pad fibres would not. It usually a good sign if they do a poo as this means it's less likely to be a blockage so that would be good.
Dorsal means the X-ray was taken when she was lying on her tummy. ie from her back down to her tummy....think of the dorsal fin of a dolphin being on its back so he back was uppermost.
Hopefully she will soon feel brighter the fluids will help replace anything she has lost from vomiting.

Thanks all of you.

The vet called with an extremely detailed update. He said in terms of her presentation, apart from two very smal vomits all day he wouldn't be able to tell that this is a sick dog. She is bright, alert, lively. AS an example he said - he palpated her tummy literally hard enough to get her to signal if she was in pain and all she did was investigate the carpet and walls and try to reach around and lick his hand.

A total of 5 X-rays have been done and no obstruction is visible. Invisible bits like plastic perhaps wouldn't show he said but then we must wait for them to pass. He has seen a bit of gas making it's way down over time but that he says is normal for an unfed dog owing to regular gut bacteria.

He said if it's was something major like I said a nail etc, he said there's no way that wouldn't show on X-ray and most importantly the dog would be in pain, not exploring carpet smells.

They've drawn blooded which have yielded unremarkable results for the usual liver, kidney, bugs parameters.

He has kept her overnight on fluids and aims to get vomits down to zero and hopes to discharge her tomorrow.

I also asked if it could be a tumour etc, but he says given the nature of the acute onset, her very young puppy age, and the presentation and imaging he would be inclined to rule those things out.

He seems very in charge and well aware. I truly hope everything is ok and she comes back soon. DH didn't cheer for his footie at all tonight because DPup always cheers with him. When he said this to me, tears splashed down his cheeks bless him. I've been crying off and on due to pregnancy hormones and watching dragon pups on Game of Thrones re runs all of said dragon pups reminding me of DPup. FFS.

Great news OP, it may just be that chewing up the puppy pad irritated her system or she has gastritis. I've never known a dog swallow nails (though it's theoretically possible) most dogs wouldn't.
Good that she's comfy and responding well to meds. Fingers crossed she's home with you soon

Sounds like good news! Hope she'll be home cheering on the football by tomorrow so I hope he recorded the highlights