Being Sick

[batmobile]

Just wondering if anyone can advise me on this:

our collie Hobbes seems to have a night every few months where he feels sick. It starts with him staring at us and swallowing/ gulping a lot and then running to the door. He then proceeds to eat lots of grass (something he enjoys anyway but this is more frantic) for a good while outside before coming in and settling down, only to repeat this about 30mins later. It usually starts at about 9pm and goes on until about 2am. He lures us into a false sense of security by settling down and if we go to bed, we are usually woken with him wanting to go out. He *usually* vomits once, and there is usually lots of it - bunched up grass, very little fluid, obviously recently eaten stuff... He never has diahorrea, it never persists into the following day and he never loses his appetite or seems really under the weather. We do not feed him varying food and any titbits is untreated and there appears to be no pattern to what causes it. The only real worry is that it is 'regular' although relatively infrequent and by the time we could go to the vet, there is nothing wrong with him. It causes us a night of sleep deprevation and I always have a sinking feeling in my stomach when I hear him gulping and see him staring at me - selfish I know but I've sat up so many times at 2am waiting for him to come back in... I don;t want to feel annoyed but it's hard sometimes!

Anyone any idea why this might happen/ if it's worth worrying about/ what to do? I wonder if possibly his grazing during the weeks before an episode makes him a bit bunged and he needs to get out any excess grass balls?! What do you think?

[Yantan]

I took Archie to the vet with what sounds the same thing. The vet diagnosed an excess of acid and advised giving him a slice of bread with only enough spread on to make him want to eat it just before bedtime.

 

Unfortunately Archie isn't the least bit food orientated so when the bread didn't work (coz he wasn't eating it) the vet suggested trying him with an antacid tablet. Archie now wolfs down a mint Rennie as if it was a bit of best steak It settles him fairly quickly and the attacks are coming far less frequently. I do watch what he eats tho.

 

George was poorly last week and on vet advice had to have an antacid tablet last week. However he wouldn't eat the squashy mint Rennie one's so I got a plain one and crushed it and added it to warm milk and it went down a treat.

 

You should maybe check with your own vet first tho before trying any of this as of course it could be due to something else entirely.

 

Marion