myshiloh
Posted : 6/30/2008 9:53:35 PM
Does your dog heave from the stomach or does it just suddenly lose a lot of food from it's mouth? There is a difference between regurgitating and vomiting. It's important to know the difference. My dog did both, actually. She would go for a few weeks okay then have a full week or two of vomiting and regurgitating. I wasn't aware that the regurgitation was becoming a bigger problem than vomiting until this past week. When she finally got tested after two years of other kinds of tests for vomiting issues, she was diagnosed with megaesophagus. It's growing more and more common in dogs. If your dog has a deep-chest like (examples ;) Great Dane or a German Shepherd or a Boxer, it is likely more inclined toward digestive issues anyway, particularly bloat. But these same dogs are, along with other breeds, can be inclined to having acid reflux problems or other digestive problems and the megaesophagus. That is, simply put, an esophagus that has become stretched out (mega=big, esophagus meaning what it - the tube leading from mouth to stomach). A stretched esophagus allows the food a dog eats to drop down below the line it should be traveling in order to get into the stomach. The stomach opening will be up high (toward the spine) while the food will be more toward the belly of the dog with no way to get up to the stomach opening. I'm talking about an esophagus being a small tube (guessing at this: about an inch or so in diameter) that becomes the size of your upper forearm. On top of being stretched out, it may not be have motility - the ability to make the wavelike motions necessary to move the food toward the stomach. There can be other conditions related to this too.
IF your dog is regurgitating instead of vomiting, you need to know what's causing it. Of course, if it's vomiting, you need to know about that too. Either way, it's obvious that you should talk with a vet about this. There are many things it could be either way.