[yorkietalkjilly]

My Tibbe would spit up yellow bile and foam from emptiness but he was empty because nausea and lethargy prevented him from eating until he felt better. It kind of dragged on for two years until we checked him for pancreatitis and then blood tests for liver disease which were ALL normal. Then Ellie May/Crystal, a long-time member here told me in a post dogs can still have liver or other problems with totally normal blood values and we probably should get a BAT. We did that and his Bile Acids were high. A nuclear scintigraphy/abdominal sonogram were ordered and we got those. No liver shunt was found and it was determined by the two vet radiologists that Tibbe likely has MVD(microvascular dysplasia), a liver condition he was born with but frequently doesn't manifest until the dog is a few years old. Tibbe was fine until he was 3 when he began to spit up the bile, have temporary anorexia and lethargy, sleep a lot and lost his zest for living. After not eating for a couple of days except what I sort of made him eat - placed in the side pocket of his mouth until he swallowed it - he would act himself again and eat, play and then get sick again, spit up, not eat and sleep all the time for two days. Once he was diagnosed with MVD, he was put on a hepatic diet to make his food easier for his compromised liver to digest and he's back to being his bouncy, feisty, fun and playful self. I've forgotten the proper terms and alot about MVD now that Tibbe is better but as I recall, with MVD, the liver doesn't process proteins properly and so they kind of poison him a bit due to not being broken down by his liver properly and until his system deals with that process, he would be down, sickly, spit up, even occas. semi-loose stool. Once he was kind of free from the poison-y way these proteins acted on his brain and body, he was hungry again, playful and okay for a couple of days. Then it all kind of started again, usually not to a big degree, just a little single spot of yellow on the floor and lethargy all day and by night, he'd be fine. But in time, the spit-up, anorexia and lethargy became worse and we started on our road to diagnosis.

If your sis' dog is doing this with any regularity, you might suggest to her she get the dog some blood tests, maybe a BAT, etc., and see if there is something going on with its liver or other organs or systemically.

If all the tests are normal, including the more advanced BAT, maybe it's something as simple as his food is disagreeing with his stomach and trying him on some others is worth a trial. He may be eating a food with too much fat or protein in it for his system - something like that. Or pure nerves and anxiety, fear can cause some dogs to not eat, spit up bile. You might ask if another dog or a child or teenager or person is giving the dog a bad time picking on it, bullying it or something.