# Eating Kibble Whole and then Vomiting... Ideas?



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

My 11 month old Border Collie/Basenji mix has recently decided to completely stop chewing her food, and simply swallow it whole. A few hours later, she vomits it up; nothing comes up but whole pieces of bloated kibble. 

This began three days ago, when we tried to switch her from feeding 3 times a day to 2. The first two days we tried this with her, she would vomit once in the evening after dinner, so we switched back, but the vomiting is still occurring. 

She's acting 100% normal other than this, so we assumed there wasn't any other issues, but we took her to the vet anyway and she checked out just fine, so it's the fact that she's swallowing her food whole. What can I do? She already has a slow-feed bowl, and although it helps to slow down her eating rate, it doesn't do anything about the chewing factor. 
I assume she's doing this because either A.) She was suddenly eating less frequently, and mistook this change for starvation and decided to start scarfing like crazy, or B.) The kibble of this particular bag of food is somewhat bigger than I'm used to feeding her, and is swelling up even larger in her tummy. 

I feed her Acana (right now she's on Ranchlands,) with a spoonful of canned food (Fromm, Weruva, etc). It is worth noting, I suppose, that I just rotated her food from Grasslands to Ranchlands, but she has never had a problem rotating Acana before, and I'm pretty sure this isn't the first bag of Ranchlands I've bought for her. 

If anyone has any ideas or feedback on how to get this to stop, I'd be very grateful. :3


----------



## PackMomma (Sep 26, 2011)

That's kind of a tough one, if the vet saw her and confirmed that nothing is bothering her, especially teeth.. sometimes dogs might swallow food without chewing if there's something going on with the teeth, but other then that it could very well be an adjustment thing with being fed less often. Have you tried soaking the kibble to soften it up a little bit? My Kelpie/border collie went through a phase like that too. I fed him kibble in the AM's and raw in the PM's and his kibble he would just enhale, puke it up, then eat it again. After he ate the regurgitated food he didn't puke it back up. I also used a slow feeder bowl, and I was also feeding Acana. Eventually I just switched him to full raw, but I would maybe suggest trying to soak the kibble for a bit to see if it helps, during the transition period.


----------



## sclevenger (Nov 11, 2012)

Ya, my Aussie did that. Hated it. But he was completely healthy. Same food he was always on, just stated doing it around 8,9 months.


----------



## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

I don't think that dogs have to chew. So my question is why is she vomiting?
1. Is she sick - vet said no.
2. Does she have a physical problem or restriction - probably not, b/c that would show up in minutes not hours.
3. Is she exercising a lot after eating? ??
4. Is there some reason that she is anxious (BCs worry about lots of things, the problem with intelligence  )

?


----------



## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

When I first got Kabota, he was scared of eating from a bowl. (What did his former owners do, throw it on the ground?) So I taught him to eat from a bowl, and then he snarfed it up so fast, he would choke on it and throw it back up. So I switched to feeding from toys. Now he can only get one or two pieces out at a time, so he actually chews them.


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

PackMomma said:


> That's kind of a tough one, if the vet saw her and confirmed that nothing is bothering her, especially teeth.. sometimes dogs might swallow food without chewing if there's something going on with the teeth, but other then that it could very well be an adjustment thing with being fed less often. Have you tried soaking the kibble to soften it up a little bit? My Kelpie/border collie went through a phase like that too. I fed him kibble in the AM's and raw in the PM's and his kibble he would just enhale, puke it up, then eat it again. After he ate the regurgitated food he didn't puke it back up. I also used a slow feeder bowl, and I was also feeding Acana. Eventually I just switched him to full raw, but I would maybe suggest trying to soak the kibble for a bit to see if it helps, during the transition period.


Good to hear that other people have had this same issue with Acana! That's a good suggestion, I'll try soaking them to see if that helps. 
Do you pay more for a completely raw diet? I've thought of going that way several times, but I figured it would be too expensive, and Acana is such a good food I just decided to supplement with raw instead.


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

sclevenger said:


> Ya, my Aussie did that. Hated it. But he was completely healthy. Same food he was always on, just stated doing it around 8,9 months.


Did he stop at some point? Was it a phase?


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

hanksimon said:


> I don't think that dogs have to chew. So my question is why is she vomiting?
> 1. Is she sick - vet said no.
> 2. Does she have a physical problem or restriction - probably not, b/c that would show up in minutes not hours.
> 3. Is she exercising a lot after eating? ??
> ...


No, she's definitely not exercising after eating... We always make sure to exercise her before. Also, she seems to only be puking at night, when she's sleeping on the bed with us. She'll just wake up, and regurgitate some of it, and then go back to sleep like nothing happened.
The only anxiety she suffers from is when my friends come over. Her excitement level is at 500% when anyone walks through the door... We're currently working on it and she's getting better, but slowly. And I suppose yesterday she did greet my friend in such a way after eating her dinner... But she vomited several hours after my friend went home.


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

Amaryllis said:


> When I first got Kabota, he was scared of eating from a bowl. (What did his former owners do, throw it on the ground?) So I taught him to eat from a bowl, and then he snarfed it up so fast, he would choke on it and throw it back up. So I switched to feeding from toys. Now he can only get one or two pieces out at a time, so he actually chews them.


I was thinking of doing something like this, or at least, trying to feed her only a couple of pieces at a time to see if that makes a difference. How much do you put in the toys at a time?


----------



## PackMomma (Sep 26, 2011)

musapan said:


> Good to hear that other people have had this same issue with Acana! That's a good suggestion, I'll try soaking them to see if that helps.
> Do you pay more for a completely raw diet? I've thought of going that way several times, but I figured it would be too expensive, and Acana is such a good food I just decided to supplement with raw instead.


No I don't necessarily pay more at all. When I was feeding my dogs kibble, I rotated between Acana, NOW!, Fromm's and Nature's Variety Instinct, and I was feeding mostly a premade commercial raw diet, supplementing with things like turkey necks occasionally. THAT was expensive. Especially here where I live, everything is quite pricey, but our economy is totally different, so all things considered its pretty even. But feeding a high quality kibble and high quality commercial raw was killing my bank account, costing me somewhere around $200/month for two dogs, including their supplemental things like turkey necks, beef ribs, bully sticks, kong stuffing , etc. I'm now feeding a prey model raw diet, and its definitely costing me nowhere near as much. Its really difficult for me to keep track, because I buy a whole whack of stuff for a great deal, and i'm constantly buying things here and there as I find good deals, and sometimes scoring lots of free stuff from kijiji or I have friends and family that hunt so I get a lot of free stuff that way. I browse the grocery stores for good prices on meats nearing expiry, and here in Alberta there is also a prey model raw dog food supplier, they aren't a commercial company they are just a family run business and they source animals, have TONS of variety and they do all the butchering/packaging then delivery once a month, with very good prices. Its almost like a raw feeding Co-op, except they just sole source everything themselves, then sell items individually to people. Sometimes my freezer is stocked enough to last me months, but as soon as they'res room I fill it. But no.. I can definitely say I'm not spending anywhere near the $200 if I worked it out carefully and actually took the time to feed through everything in my freezer and keep track of what I spend. But for just a guesstimate, I'd say maybe around $80/month on average for two dogs, and thats including what they eat in a month of commercial raw.. which is ridiculously expensive, but since I feed primarily PMR, I can afford to feed the commercial raw for convenience purposes occasionally, but If I stopped feeding that all together I would imagine it would cut the cost down to around $70/month

It really depends on your location and what is available to you. Some people just can't do raw because they don't have good, reliable, reasonably priced and convenient sources of raw. I'm very fortunate in that I live in a country that seems to be evolving around raw very quickly, and its becoming more convenient. Living near the capital city I have access to tons of asian markets, and our own supermarkets have great varieties and good deals when they come along. Its also a huge farming community, lots of ranchers, lots of hunters, and in general just lots of ways to get meat. I wouldn't be surprised if more businesses pick up soon thats similar to the company I buy PMR from. Kijiji ads are filled with ranchers, hunters, or just people with freezer burnt meat knowing that raw feeding is extremely popular here so all I have to do is do a quick search on Kijiji and atleast 10 people will be advertising to come and clean out their freezers of moose, elk, deer, beef, chicken, whatever...I even found one the other day, a person had about 20lbs of organic, grass fed beef that was freezer burnt. Free for the taking lol.


----------



## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

I could fit the whole meal into the Buster Cube but some toys won't hold enough kibbles. If you watch her eat you can try a dry plastic water bottle or milk jug as a puzzle toy but of course it can be ripped up and is not safe to leave with the dog. Max understood how to roll them around but Sassy chewed on the top so kibble couldn't get out, silly dog! If she tired then I would dump out the food for her.

Sassy would eat too fast and have to do a redo sometimes. Annoying. She rarely crunched up kibble and inhaled it in a few seconds. I also did a lot of training at meal times using kibble and would even toss it all over the floor for her to hunt down and capture. I thought it was sad that mealtime was so important to her and only lasted a very short time so tried all sorts of things to make it last longer.


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

Thank you everyone for your great ideas and comments! We've begun soaking the kibble in a bit of water before giving it to her, and so far she hasn't thrown up. Fingers crossed!


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

Alright, a little update. She just vomited again. This time, however, among the food was some strange blue plastic bag type material. Starting to think that maybe food isn't the culprit here after all. :I We're going to try and take her back to the vet over the weekend, just to make sure everything is good. She's acting perfectly normal aside from this late-night puking, but still. Want to be sure. :3


----------



## zhaor (Jul 2, 2009)

Has she been pooping? cause the first thing that crossed my mind was obstruction.


----------



## Pawzk9 (Jan 3, 2011)

Did the vet check for megaesophogus? (I bet I spelled that wrong)


----------



## musapan (Jul 10, 2009)

zhaor said:


> Has she been pooping? cause the first thing that crossed my mind was obstruction.


Yes, she's pooping, and running and romping, and eating and doing everything else super normal. She vomited a little this morning as well, so I think we're going to take her in tomorrow. :I


----------



## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

musapan said:


> I was thinking of doing something like this, or at least, trying to feed her only a couple of pieces at a time to see if that makes a difference. How much do you put in the toys at a time?


I feed him around a cup a day, the one toy holds about 1/3 of a cup, the other holds the rest. I had a third toy, but he killed it. I stuff them the night before so I have the whole day ready to go.


----------

