We had some excitement a few days ago. I bet you can guess who was the source of it. Yes, it was Zekie. Our problem child. You can read why at this link. No Mistakes

I had some bread dough formed into three loaves and it was sitting on the counter for its final rise before going into the oven. You can already see where this is going, right? Living with multiple dogs (currently 6) and two cats, we have swinging doors on our kitchen that we close with a bungee cord to keep the animals out as needed. I stepped around the corner for a second to look out the window and I turned around and was down to two bread loaves and no one was even chewing!

We didn’t have any evidence of who it was except that Zekie’s breathe wasn’t quite the same as usual. Didn’t smell like yeast though. And he was acting guilty. That could have been coincidence too. Claire the sheltie does occasionally put her feet on the counter too. But she is awfully small to have eaten that much, that quickly. And with Zekie’s reputation…well, it usually is him. We put him in his special crate made of aircraft steel incase he got sic.

Something was niggling in the back of my mind that this may be more serious than just an upset tummy. So I got out my phone and began to research “dog ate bread dough”. It turns out that this can be exceedingly serious. Zekie only ate one third of a batch so I was hopeful, but the more I read, the more worried I became. The bread dough can continue to expand inside the stomach and may eventually cause pressure on other organs and potentially the stomach could burst in the worst case. It is also possible that the yeast can ferment and form ethanol in the stomach. This could result in a drunk dog or it could be lethal.

All sites agreed that it was wise to get the dough out of the stomach stating that this could be difficult via vomiting depending on how gelatinous the mass of dough became. If you were going to induce vomiting to try to regurgitate the dough, sooner rather than later produces the best results before it starts to mix with stomach acid.

Next step was to search how to induce vomiting in dogs. Miraculously, I have never had to do this before. Hydrogen peroxide was recommended. Use ONLY 3% hydrogen peroxide at 1 teaspoon per each 5 lbs. of body weight, up to a maximum of 3 Tablespoons, no matter the dog’s weight. This is what my on-line sources said. I also called my daughter and asked for her advice on this procedure since I know she is familiar with it. Calling to ask your daughter for dog medical advice is pretty cool!

So, I got Zekie, a bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide, and a measuring Tablespoon and headed out to our fenced pasture. I gave him the correct dosage for his size, about 37 lbs., and waited. All I knew was that it should work pretty quickly. I did not know what “pretty quickly” was. For a bit I thought it wasn’t going to work. Apparently, pretty quickly is about 10 minutes. That’s when I saw results.

The bread dough came up. Yes, the thief was indeed Zekie. I had to throw a bag over the “used” dough while I went to get a scoop, so that he wouldn’t eat it again. He vomited a second time but most of the dough was up.

And thus was my indoctrination, and hopefully only experience, into the induction of vomiting in dogs. Long live Zekie!