Help! Worried about Legend!

[YourFriendDeb]

Ok, maybe I'm just an overprotective boxer momma, but I'm a little worried about my boy.

Last night, I was in the boxerworld chat room for a while, got done and sat down to watch tv. Legend went outside to do his business one last time before we went to bed. When he came back in, he started drinking water like he was dying of thirst. He lays down on the floor, then about a half hour later, we get up to go to bed. Well, he gets up and starts belching and making all these weird gurgling sounds, then he vomits! I sit down with him and pet him and talk to him, then he gets up and walks a few steps and does it again! Well, we crate him at night, so I wanted to make sure he was done before I put him in his crate. I sit down (after cleaning up the messes) and watch him. He seems fine, wiggling his butt....then....he starts walking around with his nose to the floor eating every single piece of dirt, lint, paper, whatever he comes across! When I tried to pull his head up, he would try to eat my fingers! What could be wrong with him?

My husband finally put him in his crate, and he just sat there and looked at us, then laid down. We go up to bed about 10pm. At 12:30am, Legend starts whining and woo wooing, waking us up. He NEVER EVER EVER does this. Not since the 3rd or 4th day we've had him. He's always slept through the night.

Well my husband goes down and without fanfare and kissy-talk, lets him out to go to the bathroom, which he does, and comes back in, into the crate with no issues the rest of the night.

This morning, he is his usual wiggle butt self.

What could have happened? Could it have been all that water he drank just before bedtime? Should we take his water up sooner? We also put chicken broth in his dinner for the first time last night, about 3 hours before this happened. Could THAT have done it? Help!

What kind of chicken broth was put in his food? Since Belle was just sick, we called Tufts and they told us to be careful of canned broth. It has A LOT of salt in it normally. You can buy the kind that is low sodium or low fat, but it is still probably more than Legend is used to. This might be why he was so thirsty and drank so much water. Then maybe because he drank so much water so fast, he threw it up. I don't mean to be gross but was the puke basically just water?

The people at Tufts told us how to make the broth for Belle. All you have to do is boil some chicken (we used boneless breast) and then put it in the fridge to cool. Once the fat has seperated from the broth, remove the fat from the top and strain it to get rid of any chicken pieces that may be left over. Viola! Home-made chicken broth that has no salt and minimal fat.

[YourFriendDeb]

I never thought of that! The chicken broth we have is canned and said "99% fat free" but made no mention of the salt content. When he vomited, it was a lot of water but it also had a good amount of food in it.

Thanks so much for your insight!

[MarinaS]

Poor Legend, I don't know what caused that, hope there's nothing serious. I knwo what you felt, I always feel awfully helpless when Tina is sick.

I just want to add a couple of words about eating everything from the floor - we have found out that it's a sign that a dog feels sick. When Tina starts eating feverishly everything she finds on the floor, or chewing doors and walls, that means she her tommy is sick and she is going to vomit. If you give a stick to her at these moments, she will eat this stick till the end, is you take her out, she will eat lots of grass. This seems to help for a while, anyway she will throw everything she has eaten up in a couple of days.
So if you see Legend eating things ro licking floors and everything, he is not feeling good.

Hope Legend is back to normal now and good luck

[Brutus and Amaya's Mom]

Sometimes I think they just get a little upset little tummies. Every now and then Bru will vomit at night or get a little case of the runs but in the morning he is fine. It could be eating a bug or a bad weed or just a little touch of something.

Glad to hear he is doing okay and unless it happens again soon I wouldnt be that worried.

[iluvboxers]

It could have very well been the salt in the broth. I give mine green beans sometimes but always get the low sodium ones. Hope he is doing ok today.

[boxer4]

I used to go through this with my past babies especially the acting like a vacuum sucking up any and eveything on the floor like they were in a frenzy. They would start with the water and do the same thing as yours did but when I couldn`t get them to stop the floor eating I got worried, I happened to have a appt. with the vet the one day Dutch was doing it, he looked in her throat and told us it was very inflamed, then with furthur checking found out her tonsils were swollen. That was the first time I found out that some dogs are prone to tonsilitis and that they both probably passed it back and forth. He told me if it became too frequent they could remove them otherwise he would just give her antibiotis and I would spray her throught with cloraseptic. These guys have never done this so maybe they won`t get the problem. I wonder if anybody else has ever got this diagnoisis??

[Donna741]

Too much garlic can have the same affect as onions. However it would take about 1/2 a clove of fresh garlic to do it.