Lizards and Spiders and Blood!!! Oh, My!!!!

[Ginger Bears Mom]

Just wondering? Earlier this summer Ziggy began gagging at things he found offensive I guess. I noticed it first when he would kill a bug, then blood (DH cut his leg on something in the garage), he first recoils, shakes his head, then gags, as if he had something stuck in his throat trying to gag it up, almost to the point of vomiting but stops short of this.

We have changed vets, the first one we have gone to for years, really pissed me off, but that is another story in itself, should have listened more to the kind words of advice everyone gave me about him when we had probs with him after his shots.

Any rate the new vet cannot come up with anything medically that would cause this as it only occurs as I described above. Yet knowing that Chows are not like other animals I thought I would check with everyone here.

So is there anything medically that could cause this? Or do we just have a really quirky Ziggy?

[Auddymay]

I know you are concerned, but I had this image of your Ziggy gagging like I do when I smell something rotten. I wonder if animals have a repulsion gag reflex like we do?

[fillyok]

Does he only gag during those times he sees something offensive? Or does he gag at other times? How old is Ziggy? I don't want to freak you out or anything, but gagging can be a sign of heart problems. Around the same time Samantha's heart murmur was detected, I noticed she'd gag every once in a while. Usually she does it when she first gets up from laying down...not all the time, just occasionally. Might be worth checking out.

On a totally different topic, have you ever been to the dog park there in The Woodlands? We're thinking of that place for a Chow Fest...wanted to get your thoughts on it.

[Ginger Bears Mom]

Ziggy just turned 9mos on the 16th, and he only does this when he smells something offensive that we can recall. Yes I do liken it to when I come in contact with something that smells really offensive to me and I get the gag reflex thing a going.

I'll ask the vet about the heart murmur,how do they test for that? We plan to have him neutered in the next month or so, once things calm down from the Hurricane aftermath. Our vet is a very active with rescues and has given us a heads up that we may or may not need to postpone his neuter on the 29th. Her office is having rolling power outages, but no water as of yet.

I guess dogs can have their own gag reflex as do human's Clara (vet) was pretty dumbfounded when we discussed this with her, had to take him in late July he sprained his leg during one of his maniac Zoomie bursts. If he hadn't hurt himself it was pretty comical to see, he hit our daughters bed did a few fast spin turns on the last one the comforter slid as did he. But he is a-ok from that.

Dog parks, our favorite Cattail is a relatively new park with limited shade coverage, the one with the majority of the trees Bear Creek, is huge on the big dog side. But we stopped going there cause there were a lot of big dog scraps there.

I will check with the city this week to see if they have any recommendations in the area and if they allow groups to reserve them.

So I am curious other then possible medical issues does anyone else have a dog that does this?