# Bile puke with bone shards



## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

so today is Riley's twelfth day on raw and we finally hit a bump in the road. i just found some bile pukes with bones shards in it behind one of our plants. it was still wet so i assume she must have done it this morning. she has not eaten yet today.

she has been eating two chicken quarters a day with all the skin and fat with no problem so far. she eats twice a day. occasionally, at night, i have been allowing her a milk bone biscuit or two if she is acting hungry but she has not had any within the last 24 hours. 

do i treat this as a normal occurrence and proceed as i have been? do i need to change anything? i was hoping to start her on turkey necks three days from now but the fact that she suddenly seems to be having problems with chicken bones makes me hesitant. i know this is a pretty normal thing, but how do i proceed from here?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

If it's not too late, let her skip the morning meal and pick back up as normal with the evening meal. You are right, its really not a big deal. Perhaps you were late feeding her this morning? Anyway, don't worry about it. It'll all work out. These things happen from time to time. :smile:


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## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

RawFedDogs said:


> If it's not too late, let her skip the morning meal and pick back up as normal with the evening meal. You are right, its really not a big deal. Perhaps you were late feeding her this morning? Anyway, don't worry about it. It'll all work out. These things happen from time to time. :smile:


sounds great! she has been cooling down after her morning walk and has not been fed yet, so i will wait until dinner to feed her. she did have an earlier breakfast yesterday than she normally does, so it is possible she just got thrown off her schedule today a bit.


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## Kofismom (Sep 14, 2010)

When Kofi started on PMR, and began eating chicken backs, she would often bring it back up bone and all, and then eat it again. It made me feel quite uncomfortable to watch, but I was told this could happen in the beginning. She is a gulper, and is much better at chewing now. 
It also was not uncommon to find bone pieces in her poo, which also made me feel uneasy. After a few months, she settled right in, and those things no longer happen.
Riley is beautiful!


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## lily (May 16, 2011)

ahhh a bully owner who raw feeds ,not many of us about lol,annie has only done the chuck up bit once with pork ribs then tried to eat it ,yuk,shes so in the swing of raw now,doesnt gulp its amazing how quick they lean how to eat raw after being kibble fed,karen


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## Kofismom (Sep 14, 2010)

lily said:


> ahhh a bully owner who raw feeds ,not many of us about lol,annie has only done the chuck up bit once with pork ribs then tried to eat it ,yuk,shes so in the swing of raw now,doesnt gulp its amazing how quick they lean how to eat raw after being kibble fed,karen


Hi Karen, there are a few of us here from our bulldog site. Adam is pretty regular, for one.
I was somewhat apprehensive, since I read in Ton Lonsdale's book:
It is true that dogs with flat faces such as Bulldogs and Pekingese may experience a degree of difficulty with chewing and swallowing. Due to their misshapen jaws these dogs need more, not less, chewing in order to cleanse the oral cavity.
Where increased risks exist increased vigilance is required.

Kofi does much better now, but she will still try to swallow chicken legs, wings, etc. whole, so I have learned to feed her larger pieces whole.

Lily has such a sweet little face. Isn't it great having a raw fed bully with no skin issues, allergies, smelly ears and mouth, etc?


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## Northwoods10 (Nov 22, 2010)

Perfectly normal for a beginner. And mine will occasionally do that yet. They've been raw fed for over a year now ( the girls). 

Just a bump in the road as you said, not a big deal at all. :smile:


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Sounds to me like a simple case of the hunger pukes. I wouldn't skip her morning meal necessarily but it wouldn't hurt if you did. Things like this are normal if they happen on occasion, if it starts happening with regularity then it would be cause for concern. Glad to hear things are going well otherwise! 

If she continues to do well over the next few days I would start removing less and less fat gradually. Do this until she can handle a whole CLQ without trimming it at all.


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## schtuffy (May 17, 2010)

It's actually rather nice that Riley didn't start doing this till the 12th day, LOL! Louis bile puked the very first night, and pretty much a couple times a week for a few weeks after. There was definitely a lot of carpet and couch cleaning in the beginning. I always tried to figure out what went wrong...did he not chew enough? did I feed too much or too little? did he eat something else he shouldn't have? But in the end, the bile pukes pretty much happened randomly and with no specific reason. Even 3-4 months into raw, he would do it on occasion. I just ignored it and kept feeding as usual. I'm sure Riley will be ok! :smile:


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## monkeys23 (Dec 8, 2010)

Sounds pretty normal to me!

Lily had tons of hunger pukes in the begining because of how much faster the raw food digests. Now it seems to only be if I get on a set food schedule for several days in a row, so I try to keep times unpredictable to avoid it.


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## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

DaneMama said:


> Glad to hear things are going well otherwise!
> 
> If she continues to do well over the next few days I would start removing less and less fat gradually. Do this until she can handle a whole CLQ without trimming it at all.


things are actually going just about perfect. she has been getting all fat and skin for the last five days or so, which is really nice. it really is just as easy as kibble now - hand dog chunk of meat, watch dog eat meat, viola! meal time accomplished.

her teeth are already noticeably whiter. the poop is much firmer than it ever was, and it is downright tiny too. plus, it hardly smells at all, and she is not anywhere near as gassy as she was on kibble. her coat is actually becoming richer in color. even better, the dog who would voluntarily skip kibble meals on a regular basis will now eat every last morsel and lick the ground for the last traces. her eyes visibly light up when she hears the word "chicken." i have to say, i am a total convert now. relatives have even noticed the changes in her and are calling me up for information on raw to pass on to other dog owners they know!


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## FL Cracker (May 4, 2011)

Just a bit more "food for thought"....

Dogs are not meant to be fed on time they are genetically programmed for variation of both feeding time and food composition. Today's modern domesticated dog are fast to adjust to a regular feeding time which can often be dictated by the work commitments/lifestyle of its owner. This starts to cause trouble when you suddenly start to deviate from a usually regimented feeding program, vomiting bile is a common side effect of this.

If you feed your dog at 8am every day then all in organs in the body's gastrointestinal system will program themselves to start their parts of the digestive process at 8am whether you feed your dog or not. Therefore if you suddenly miss a meal the only thing a dog can do with the digestive juices which have been produced in anticipation of food which has suddenly not been provided is to vomit them up. Some people see the vomiting of bile as a sign that there dog is not well or as proof that a dog needs to be fed at the same time everyday.

People may experience similar problems when they feed a food their dog isn't used to, for example a shift to raw food, again the owner wrongly concludes there is a problem with the raw food.

Kibble contains sometimes more than half its weight in carbohydrates, carbohydrates are not by nature on the menu of carnivores.

Carbohydrates can only be digested in the dogs stomach by enzymes that only function well at pH levels that are close to neutral (pH6-7) whilst a natural raw diet for carnivores requires a strong acidity (pH 1-2) for the enzymes to digest raw food.

When a dog has been programmed to expect a meal mainly of carbohydrates at 8am the pancreas will produce the enzymes that can do the job of digesting carbohydrates and the stomach will adjust the pH level to around 6. This happens shortly before 8am every day.

If you suddenly start to feed an adult dog a raw meaty bone diet it will be a shock to the dogs digestive system as the stomach is programmed to digest Carbohydrates. The enzymes produced by the pancreas and other glands are wrong and the pH level in the stomach is wrong hence the dogs may vomit the food to deal with the problem. Most enzymes are extremely sensitive to pH and if the pH is off what they need they will not function this is why feeding both raw with biscuit or kibble is a contradiction a stomach's ph must be one or the other.

The problem is not the food but the past feeding program and biologically wrong food.

Some adults dogs will make the switch to a raw diet with no problems at all but ideally it is best to de-condition the reflex responses created by unnatural predictable feeding by varying the times when you feed by feeding an hour earlier for a few days then perhaps 2 hours early on another day, the stomach is already full by the time the usual feeding time arrives but try to avoid feeding later. It does not take long, just a few days, to break the conditioned reflex of producing enzymes for carbohydrates that may have been established for several years.

Once this is done the dog will no longer produce any enzymes for the expected digestion until the stomach has realised what kind of food it needs to digest and will no longer make the wrong guesses as the dogs stomach should not start producing enzymes for digestion until the food has passed the esophagus, and if you keep to a non predictable feeding schedule it will stay that way. You will eventually be able to feed one meal say at 9am one day and then perhaps if you are away for whatever reason the next it becomes normal for the dog not to be fed until say 8pm the following day. Additionally there are no 'pre-programmed' stomach juices needing to be vomited up!

To raw fed dogs just 4-5 meals weekly is quite normal and does not pose any problems, the meals are often irregular in quantity on a daily basis and just as how a carnivore would usually eat.


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## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

well last night was riley's first night of turkey. she got a pound of chicken in the morning and a small turkey neck (12oz) for dinner at around 5pm. it went perfectly, except for another bile puke with bone shards at 2am. at least she made it off the bed :biggrin: 

obviously, i would like to avoid cleaning turkey bones off my carpet in the wee hours of the morning. is this happening because it was a very bone heavy meal and less food than she is used to? i was thinking it might help to feed turkey for breakfast instead, so she does not go as long between meals when she has a lot of bone in her system. maybe the chicken quarter meat would act as a cushion to the turkey bone shards left after digesting her morning meal? any suggestions would be much appreciated.

ETA: she also just had another bile puke outside


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

It may definitely be that it's a bit too much bone for her. Some dogs just don't handle a ton of bone that well, which is perfectly fine- every dog is slightly different. 

Maybe today feed one chicken leg quarter and a small amount of boneless chicken in the morning. Then give her another turkey neck with some boneless chicken. See how this goes.


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## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

i took your advice and have been feeding the necks with some mostly meat chicken parts as her breakfast meal the past two days. no more bone-shard pukes! she does seem to have pretty hard poop though.

i did buy a whole fryer chicken recently, which came with giblets in a bag. if her poop is still hard with the added chicken meat, do you think feeding some liver might help to counterbalance the boney turkey necks? after i feed all these necks i think i will probably buy turkey drumsticks instead from now on.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

danecolor said:


> i took your advice and have been feeding the necks with some mostly meat chicken parts as her breakfast meal the past two days. no more bone-shard pukes! she does seem to have pretty hard poop though.


Good to hear! Hard poops are normal. If they are powdery or dry then you'd want to add in more meat to the bone inclusive meals. 



> i did buy a whole fryer chicken recently, which came with giblets in a bag. if her poop is still hard with the added chicken meat, do you think feeding some liver might help to counterbalance the boney turkey necks? after i feed all these necks i think i will probably buy turkey drumsticks instead from now on.


Like I said above, hard poos are great, its when they are powdery that you need to feed more meat. How long has it been since the switch?

Turkey necks are one of my favorite raw meaty bones to feed...I wouldn't give up on them quite yet! Just make note that you need to follow with a boneless meal or feed in conjunction with boneless meat.


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## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

DaneMama said:


> Good to hear! Hard poops are normal. If they are powdery or dry then you'd want to add in more meat to the bone inclusive meals.


they are hard and dry but not powdery. she seemed to have some problems getting it out which is what made me think they may be a bit too boney for her.





DaneMama said:


> How long has it been since the switch?
> 
> Turkey necks are one of my favorite raw meaty bones to feed...I wouldn't give up on them quite yet! Just make note that you need to follow with a boneless meal or feed in conjunction with boneless meat.


this is day seventeen since the switch so we are only in the third week. i do like the necks because they seem to give her a pretty good chew work out, which i am hoping will get the tartar off of her very back teeth. the tartar on those teeth and along the gum line of one canine tooth are the only places it seems to be hanging on still :biggrin: .

i think you are right, i will not give up on the necks yet. i think they will also be easier to feed when i get into more boneless red meats in a few weeks! this transition has been so fun.


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## schtuffy (May 17, 2010)

I just wanted to add that when the time does come for you to introduce organs, the bonier pieces like necks work great. The fact that she is having hard poops even with the added fat is a good thing, it means she is adjusting well! Louis adjusted fairly well too, and would have hard poops more often than not. I would think to myself, 'Man, my dog sure doesn't need much bone at all." I could feed him a chicken wing and then go 4-5 meals all boneless no problem. But when I started introducing organs and richer meats like heart, and as his body gradually adjusted, I found myself feeding bone-in meals much more often. Now he gets bone once every other meal, or every third meal. Either way, those turkey necks just might come in handy sooner or later :biggrin:


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

danecolor said:


> they are hard and dry but not powdery. she seemed to have some problems getting it out which is what made me think they may be a bit too boney for her.


Well, if they aren't powdery or crumbly then I wouldn't worry too much about it. You certainly don't want the opposite!



> this is day seventeen since the switch so we are only in the third week. i do like the necks because they seem to give her a pretty good chew work out, which i am hoping will get the tartar off of her very back teeth. the tartar on those teeth and along the gum line of one canine tooth are the only places it seems to be hanging on still :biggrin: .
> 
> i think you are right, i will not give up on the necks yet. i think they will also be easier to feed when i get into more boneless red meats in a few weeks! this transition has been so fun.


Bailey still has a bit of tartar on her canines...its just there because they don't use those teeth to chew at all. I don't worry about it. 

Glad you've enjoyed the transition!!! And even more glad to hear that she is doing well on it so far!


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## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

the only thing i worry about is the redness and how the gum looks like it is receding on that one tooth. is there any cut of meat i can eventually feed that might cause her to use that tooth?

but yes, the transition has been amazing. she looks wonderful and i just feel pride in being able to feed her such a healthy diet. several people have been very positive and interested about the diet when they found out that is what she is eating now. (given, we have not been to the vet yet to hear their commentary :wink: )


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

danecolor said:


> the only thing i worry about is the redness and how the gum looks like it is receding on that one tooth. is there any cut of meat i can eventually feed that might cause her to use that tooth?


The tartar buildup doesn't look all that bad right now, its slightly red but not terrible. The gumline isn't that receded. You could feed her giant chunks of meat that she has to rip/tear meat off of to get her to use those teeth, but it may not help. But I wouldn't do this until months into the diet. Its almost like gorging and fasting....


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## Lisa_j (Apr 7, 2011)

My danes, especially Sarge look like this. I have tried to scale his teeth myself and he just won't let me. The canine teeth are the only ones that look like your pic, with some build up. Worse come to worse, I will put them through a dental, however, I honestly think they look worse than they are. I think we now expect pefect white teeth when feeding raw. Just not the case if those teeth are not used!


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