Worried my dog has an obstruction…

[Muddy unicorn]

Last night he woke up at about 1am drooling massively and retching, but only managing to bring up copious amounts of white foam. He asked to go out in the garden where he started stuffing his face with grass, which of course almost immediately came back up so I was now clearing up green foam. This went on for about 4 hours - he’d seem to calm down and go to sleep and then half an hour later he’d be retching again.

He’s been quieter than normal today and has a weepy eye which is always a telltale sign for him that something’s amiss. But no retching until just now for a few minutes - he’s now calm again and snoozing.

Obviously I googled ? and one of the possible causes was an intestinal obstruction. He’s never swallowed anything that’s not food before but his philosophy with food is eat first, ask questions later so it wouldn’t be an impossibility.

If any of your dogs have been silly enough to eat something which has then got stuck, what were the symptoms?

 

[Gloi]

It's past time he was at the vets

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Absolutely this, never mind googling, ring the vet. By now it may cost you an emergency visit, rather than a daytime visit becasue you should have rung first thing this morning.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Sounds similar to when my Beata got sick some years ago, except there wasn't much foam, without more bile that came up. Turned out that the day before she started puking, and retching, while she had been out of my sight for max around a minute out on a walk, she'd gotten hold of a discarded meat net from some outdoor grilling. The net was partly stuck in her stomach, partly stuck in the intestines.

In your shoes, I would go to the veterinarian. Fingers crossed it goes well.

 

[bonny]

How can anyone say their dog hasn’t swallowed anything other than food ? I’m another one who would have gone to the vets and I can be a wait and see kind of dog owner.

 

[AmyMay]

Emergency vet I’m afraid.

 

[Sandstone1]

Could also be bloat, Vet now.

 

[CorvusCorax]

An obstruction can take a day or so to cause problems. My experience is extremely listless and off their food with no retching.
Yours sounds more like bloat or torsion (I hope given the timing, it's neither of those) or eaten something awful. Dogs don't really understand what's 'food/not food' and a lot of human foods are toxic.
Even if it was an obstruction, you'd need to go to the vet for an x-ray to confirm.
I didn't **see** my old dog eat a balled-up pair of tights and it wasn't like her, but that was what got cut out of her.

 

[Gloi]

How is he now?

 

[Muddy unicorn]

He’s absolutely fine, thankfully - I called the duty vet and they said wait and see and if he started vomiting again to take him in. We had a peaceful night and he’s back to his normal bouncy self today.

He’s no stranger to the emergency vet … in 5 years he managed to rack up >£15,000 in vets bills… and my gut feeling was it wasn’t an emergency presentation - what I wanted to know was could an obstruction be something that caused chronic issues over a few days? A few years ago he got an apple core stuck at the bottom of his œsophagus and that was clearly an emergency but this was different.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

Thanks for the update, I'm glad all is well.