So your dog is vomiting yellow foam, now what? Queue in Levi, our three-year-old Australian Labradoodle, and renowned picky eater. Levi tends to self-regulate his food intake so much so that he ends up throwing up bile. A few extra treats the night before or a larger than normal dinner, leads him to skip his next meal resulting in yellow vomit a few hours later.
What is the yellow foam?
Essentially the yellow foam you see is bile.
Bile is a digestive fluid. It’s produced in the liver and stored in the gallbladder.
One of the primary functions of the bile is fat emulsification and the activation of lipases. Lipases are a group of enzymes that assist in the absorption of dietary fat. If you are wondering what fat emulsification is, I was too. “Fat emulsification is the process of increasing the surface area of fats in the small intestine by grouping them into small clusters.” This takes place in preparation for fat digestion.
What is the cause of the vomit?
Most experts will tell you it’s an indication that the stomach is empty.
If frequent, there may be other issues involved, so please seek veterinary care.
Bilious Vomiting Syndrome
If your dog vomiting yellow foam, especially in the mornings he may be suffering from Bilious Vomiting Syndrome or BVS. BVS is a condition associated with the vomiting of bile as a result of bile build-up leading to mucosal irritation.
Similar to acid reflux in humans, BVS happens in a lower sphincter when fluid from the duodenum refluxes through the pyloric sphincter into the stomach where it’s not supposed to be. This causes an irritation in the mucosal lining of the stomach resulting in your dog throwing up.
We still don’t know what causes this and most interesting to me, why it usually happens on an empty stomach.
How to Avoid It?
You can feed your dog more regularly, say twice a day, and avoid skipping meals. But what if your pup is choosing to skip meals?
We first started to notice Levi throwing up yellow foam when he was a puppy. I noticed that when he would skip meals, he would end up throwing up yellow foam the next morning. I thought he was just a picky eater and tried adding a million different things to his food in an effort to get him eating in order to avoid the throw-up.
However, over the years I have come to realize that when a dog is hungry, he will eat! Of course, this is barring any medical issues, so please be conscious of that. So now I’m a little more patient. I let him do his thing, and because I know what is coming when he skips meals, I give him treat or two to help to help hold him over until his next meal. What do these treats look like for us now?
A dehydrated turkey neck or an anchovy or two usually do the trick.
