How to Diagnose Vomiting in Dogs
📝 Summary
Vomiting is a sign, not a disease, so diagnosis starts by pairing it with other clues. The episode's length, its timing after eating, what the vomit contains, any abdominal pain, and the pattern of bouts all point to the source — from esophageal and gastric disease to intestinal blockage or central nervous causes. Even rare but projectile vomiting warrants checking for a brain lesion.
1 Duration of the Episode
Long courses suggest neurologic vomiting, brain tumor, or pyloric obstruction; short ones point to infectious disease, abdominal inflammation, or drugs.
2 Relationship to Feeding
Vomiting tied to meals first suggests gut disease, and the higher the lesion, the sooner it appears after eating. Esophageal or cardia disease ejects freshly eaten food right after a meal, not stomach content; gastric disease vomits later and characteristically brings up stomach content; intestinal disease isn’t directly linked to meals; throat lesions can also trigger post-eating vomiting through food irritation.
3 What the Vomit Reveals
Fresh food means an esophageal lesion; stomach content points to the stomach; bile indicates mid-gut disease; a fecal smell suggests large-intestine blockage; blood — fresh or coffee-ground — usually means an upper-GI lesion.
4 Abdominal Pain and Severity
Vomiting with abdominal pain points to inflammation of an abdominal organ, gut obstruction, or stones. Frequent vomiting suggests gut or central disease; occasional vomiting where other signs dominate means another system is primary. But with central lesions, vomiting may be rare until intracranial pressure rises — even infrequent but projectile vomiting should raise suspicion of a central cause.
5 Drug History
Note any recent irritating or emetic medications.
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