Hunger pukes: What do they indicate?Ever woken up in the middle of the night to hear your dog heaving? Or got up in the morning to see a pool of yellowish liquid with white foam greet you? That, dear reader, are Hunger pukes. No, we don’t say that you have been starving your dog. This is something that all dogs do at least a few times in their lives.
You must take hunger pukes seriously. Over time, your dog’s body will continue to respond by producing bile in the needed quantities. As your dog grows older, you it has been observed that the do hunger pukes less frequently. It’s not because he has gotten over the ‘problem’, but rather, his stomach lining, as a defense mechanism, has become tougher. This is not a good thing. To compensate, your dog’s body will be giving up the sensitivity and vitality it needs in order for its digestive system to work efficiently. And since everything is connected to each other, the result could be other complications that might show up much later in life.
How a Dog’s Digestive System and Stomach Work
So, the short answer to the big question of whether dogs vomit when they are hungry is that they can and do. This won’t be something that every dog will do, and it won’t happen every time you’re late with their meals, but yes, dogs do vomit when they are hungry.
There is actually a name for this condition: bilious vomiting syndrome. To understand why it is called that and why it occurs, let’s look at how a dog’s digestive system works.
Since dogs are mammals, their digestive system functions similarly to that of a human. Just like us, dogs’ livers produce bile—an acidic substance—which is stored in the gallbladder and released into the stomach and small intestine to digest fats.
If bile is released into the digestive tract with nothing to digest (that is, if the stomach is completely empty), it can be quite painful. It can also cause symptoms of acid reflux.
If you suspect that your pup might suffer from bilious vomiting syndrome, one way to tell is to look at their vomit (yes, it is gross, we know!). If it contains no food or very little food, and it looks like a thick, yellow or orange mucus, then it is mostly bile and bilious vomiting syndrome might be the culprit.
We don’t know exactly why some dogs develop bilious vomiting syndrome. The most commonly cited theory is that something is amiss with the normal “housekeeping” contractions of the gastrointestinal tract that should occur in between meals. As a result, fluid within the first part of the intestinal tract (the duodenum) moves backwards into the stomach resulting in irritation of the stomach’s lining and vomiting. This explanation has resulted in some veterinarians calling the condition reflux gastritis.
If feeding the dog late in the evening and early in the morning doesn’t improve matters, I’ll generally recommend a health work up that consists of blood work, a urinalysis, a fecal examination, and abdominal X-rays to make sure that the dog is truly as healthy as he or she appears to be. In some cases, additional laboratory testing, an abdominal ultrasound, and/or scoping of the GI tract may be in order.
Whatever the underlying cause, most dogs with bilious vomiting syndrome respond very well to a simple form of treatment — feeding them their normal food right before bedtime and again first thing in the morning (yes, I mean even before you get a cup of coffee). I do not recommend changing the dog’s food at the same time as the feeding schedule is being modified. As a veterinarian, I prefer to change one thing at a time whenever possible so I can better assess what is working and what is not.
When a dog that is suspected of having bilious vomiting syndrome doesn’t get better with more frequent feedings alone and other causes of chronic vomiting have been ruled out, medications can be added to the treatment plan. Some dogs respond to drugs that reduce gastric acidity (e.g., famotidine or omeprazole) while others do better with metoclopramide, a medication that increases the frequency of contractions within the small intestines, or maropitant, a broad spectrum anti-vomiting drug.
We spend a lot of time on Nutrition Nuggets talking about what (and what not) to feed our dogs. When dogs have bilious vomiting syndrome, however, when meals occur is even more important than what the meals consist of.
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Your dog will only experience bilious vomiting if he has an empty stomach. “When it has been a while since they have eaten, or if fatty foods are fed, bile leaks back into the stomach and may cause some irritation and vomiting,” says Dr.