My dog JUST had her first episode of this last night and had another one this morning. I didn’t bring her to the vet because she didn’t seem to be in pain and I honestly just thought she swallowed a hair and it got stuck and was trying to eat anything she could to maybe dislodge it and help it move down her throat. Plus it subsided in a few minutes. It hopefully won’t be a chronic problem, but so far the only people that have this issue seem to be dealing with it over a long period of time so now I’m nervous. I adopted her 3 weeks ago and she is a 1 year old 50 lb mixed breed (looks maybe part chocolate lab or German short haired pointer). I also volunteered at the shelter she was at and in the month she was there, I never noticed an episode. I have a few things I wanted to add to the discussion to see if any one else experienced anything similar.
The first is that she frequently gets hiccups…..was wondering if anyone else’s dog with this problem also does?
Another is that I changed her diet almost 2 weeks ago which is sort of recent, but I feel like symptoms would have shown earlier if it was triggered by her food. She also stayed at a family member’s house for a few days and I just got her back a few days ago, but while she was there she had really bad diarrhea, which we attributed to her getting into the dog food at their house. Once she got home her stomach still seemed a little agitated, but her stools were solid again. She has been a little gassy, but gets especially gassy in conjunction with these gulping fits.
The last thing I have to add is that a couple days ago, my mom thought she noticed a flea in the house so she gave all of our animals a dose of some otc topical flea and tick medicine. I am not sure if the dogs at the shelter got flea and tick medicine or not, and if so then what type/when she had her last dose, but I do know that this is the first dose she has gotten while she has been with me and it is the closest change in anything we give to her to these episodes. I noticed that someone said these fits sort of come in monthly waves and I was wondering if they maybe come close to when they give their monthly flea/tick preventative or if they’ve tried changing or withholding their dog’s preventative to see if it stops the gulping fits? I am thinking it could be some sort of weird reaction to the medicine…
