Yesterday, after having my breakfast, instead of heading straight back to bed like I usually do, I started feeling sickie.

Whenever I feel like this, I always take myself outside to eat grass because that makes me throw up and then I feel better.

Often, it is just because I have not chewed my food properly and this way, I can eat it all back up again and make sure I chew it properly a second time. OK, I know that sounds disgusting to humans but actually, regurgitating food is a very normal thing for us doggies to do. In fact, wild doggies often regurgitate their food – this is why puppies have the instinct to lick faces because this triggers adult dogs to regurgitate the partially-digested food from the hunt.

Here is an excerpt from Stanley Coren’s book, How to Speak Dog:

“Licking takes on a further meaning a bit later in the puppy’s life, usually around the time that it is becoming less dependent on its mother’s milk. In the wild, when a mother wolf returns from hunting, she will have already fed herself on her quarry. When she enters the den, the puppies gather around her and begin to lick her face. To a romantic, this may look like a loving greeting with all of the puppies overjoyed at mother’s return after her absence of several hours. They are seen as simply kissing her in happiness and relief. The actual purpose of all of this face licking, however, is much more functional. Wild canines have a well-developed regurgitation reflex, and the puppies lick their mother’s face and lips to cause her to vomit up some food. It is most convenient for the mother to carry food in her stomach rather than trying to drag things back to the den in her mouth. Furthermore, this partially digested material makes ideal dining for young puppies.

It is interesting to note that our domestic dogs actually have a reduced sensitivity for their regurgitation reflex in comparison to wolves or jackals. Puppy-induced regurgitation is not as often seen in dogs unless the pups are not being fed well. When it does occur, it is more likely to occur in sharp-faced breeds that appear to be more similar to wild canines, such as the wolf.”

Of course, sometimes doggies throw up because they are REALLY sickie – but this is different from normal regurgitation. If you are interested, here is some more information: 

• Normal vomiting in dogs & cats : http://www.wellvet.com/vomit.html
• The difference between vomiting & regurgitation in dogs: http://www.helium.com/items/1252298-dog-regurgitating-dog-vomiting-difference-between-dog-vomiting-regurgitating-dog-vomiting-foam

Because I am on the raw diet, I often regurgitate when I get given a raw meaty bone that is bigger than usual and if I don’t chew it properly…I will just puke the pieces back up again and chew it some more before swallowing again and then I’m fine.

My humans usually just let me get on with it – they just make sure that they feed me outside and leave me outside for about 10mins after my meal, in case I decide to “have seconds”! Hee! Hee!

But yesterday it was different. First of all, I had my weekly fish meal (salt-free tinned pink salmon this week) so there were no bones or anything hard to chew. And I have had this many times before with no problems. Also, I did not just puke once and eat it back up – I kept eating more grass to make myself sick and then throwing up huge clumps of grass everywhere!

(sorry for sensitive readers if you find this picture icky!)

Most of all, I just could not seem to settle down and go back to sleep. Now, those of you who do not know me well may be thinking “What’s the big deal? I don’t sleep either!” – but anyone who knows me knows that I always do the same thing every day: after breakfast, I take myself back to bed and am comatose till around 4-5pm in the afternoon when my human wakes me up to take me for my daily walk.

Sometimes, in the past, when my human was worried about me “being bored” (and since she is lucky to work from home), she would try to play games or do some training with me during her lunch break but – nah, am not interested…just want to snooze (preferably in the sun!). So if something is keeping me from sleeping, then something is really bothering me…

So my human started to get worried. Maybe I had eaten something poisonous? By 3pm in the afternoon when I was still eating grass (although I wasn’t throwing up anymore…nothing left in my tummy!), she decided to call the vet.

Most of all, she was worried about the scary sickness called bloat which us Danes often get, because some of the common symptoms of bloat are vomiting, drooling, retching and restlessness. Although my tummy wasn’t like a tight balloon and I wasn’t standing haunched over (other common symptoms), she thought it was better to be safe because if you get bloat, it is an emergency and doggies can die if they are not treated quickly.

The vet could only see us at 5:15pm so we had to wait a bit but actually, I was feeling a little better. I wasn’t vomiting anymore, although I still couldn’t sleep. Everytime I tried to curl up on my bed and close my eyes…after 10mins, I would start making weird swallowing/gulping noises again and have to run outside to eat more grass because I was feeling sickie.

Anyway, so we went to my vets (The Vets, Greenwoods Corner, Epsom, Auckland) and I was so excited to be going there that I made myself feel a bit better.

Hsin-Yi said it is just typical that whenever we animals go to the vet, we don’t act as sickie anymore!

I love my vets because I went to Puppy School there so I associate it with happy times from very long ago and I also always get treats from the nice reception lady and the nurses and my favourite vet, Marieke, always gives me lots of cuddles and talks to me in a squeaky voice and calls me “Bubba”. But I was really upset to find out that Marieke had left! Well, she hasn’t left completely – she is taking “a break” to do other things and so only comes to the clinic on Wed afternoons.

But she was not there yesterday so I had to see another lady vet - who was quite nice too, although she did not give me treats like usual because she said my tummy might be too sickie to have anything. She spent a long time feeling my tummy…

…and then she gave me an injection!

She was not sure what my sickie was but she said it was definitely not bloat (whew!) and maybe that I had “caught a bug”…what does she mean? I have not been trying to catch any bugs at all!! (Not since I ate that bumblebee by mistake and it made horrible buzzings in my head…)

Anyway, she said that injection was something called an “antiemetic” which will stop me feeling sickie, because she agreed with Hsin-Yi that I was just eating lots of grass because I felt sickie and I thought eating grass would make me feel better but actually, eating so much grass on an empty stomach is probably not a good idea either…

Well, I did feel a little better when we went home although I still felt very sorry for myself. Especially because Hsin-Yi would not give me any dinner because she said my tummy needed to have a rest. Humph! But I’m starving!! Anyway, she came and gave me cuddles on my beanbag for a long time, which made me feel better…

And at bedtime, as a special treat, she took my beanbag bed into the bedroom so I could sleep with my humans. Ooh! I was beginning to like ‘being sickie’! I was actually feeling much better by now but hey – I discovered this really cool thing: I could make my human jump out of bed and take me out into the garden if I acted a bit sickie! It was great! I loved all the attention and I could wander around the garden sniffing stuff while she stood there waiting for me…

I did this lots of times and was having great fun but then at 3am, Hsin-Yi got really grumpy and said she was not playing my game anymore. She was very sleepy and tired and cold from standing in the garden. She said I had had a wee, a poo (nice, normal, firm one!) and a drink and had not vomited for many hours so I was fine and just having her on! So she put my bed back in the living room, sent me to my bed and stomped off back to the bedroom.

Well, I guess it was fun while it lasted! Anyway, I was pretty tired too by then (remember, I’d missed out on my sleep in the day!) so I was quite pleased to be settling back into my bed where it usually is and everything was familiar again and I could relax and go to sleep…zzzZZZzzz…

This morning, I was back to my normal self and I was STARVING but Hsin-Yi said I could only have a small meal so that my tummy doesn’t get sickie again. I got a bit of boiled rice and tuna fish in spring water…it wasn’t much but it was YUMMY!! Tonight, Hsin-Yi says I can go back to my normal raw diet although I will start back on raw chicken necks  first ‘coz they are much easier to chew. Yay – I can’t wait!!