Vomiting is common in dogs and cats - but sometimes it’s the first sign of a serious, time-critical illness. In this video, Dr Ebeneze from Takurua Vets explains how to tell the difference between mild vomiting you can monitor briefly, and vomiting that needs urgent veterinary attention.
What worries us most isn’t a single vomit - it’s vomiting that persists, or vomiting that comes with other red flags like loss of appetite, not keeping water down, abdominal pain, a “tucked up” posture, or blood in vomit or poo. When those signs appear, we want to investigate quickly with diagnostics such as blood tests and abdominal imaging (x-rays and ultrasound) to look for causes like infection, inflammation, pancreatitis, gallbladder or liver disease, gastrointestinal obstruction, tumours, or early sepsis.
The key message: vomiting is a symptom, not a diagnosis - and simply stopping it can risk missing the narrow window where life-threatening conditions are still treatable.
00:00 Vomiting: upset tummy or emergency?
00:10 Why early stages can look the same
00:14 When monitoring can be reasonable
00:22 Red flags that need urgent care
00:33 Pain, posture changes, blood in vomit/poo
00:39 Why we investigate quickly
00:43 Blood tests and abdominal imaging
00:54 What we look for: infection and inflammation
01:00 Pancreatitis, gallbladder and liver disease
01:04 Obstructions, tumours, early sepsis
01:11 The key takeaway: vomiting isn’t a diagnosis
01:29 Don’t just suppress vomiting and miss the window
How do you know if vomiting is just an upsy tummy or if it's actually something life threatening?
The scary thing is that in the early stages these things can look exactly the same.
So if a dog or cat is vomiting at home once or twice and they're still bright and happy in themselves, we may choose to just monitor them for a short while.
What really worries me is if that vomiting persists or if other symptoms start appearing.
Things like inappetence or if they're unable to keep food and water down, if they have pain in their abdomen, if they seem tucked up or if there's any blood in their poo or in their vomit.
If that happens we want to investigate that quite quickly.
Those investigations would include diagnostics such as blood tests, abdominal imaging like x-rays and ultrasound and what we look for when we do those things would be signs of infection, inflammation.
We will look at their pancreas for pancreatitis. We'll look at their gallbladders and their livers.
We want to look for things like gastrointestinal obstructions. That's really common in dogs and cats.
We also want to look for things like tumors and even early signs of sepsis.
I think the main take home from this would be that vomiting itself is not a diagnosis — it’s not just to stop the vomiting — because a lot of these life-threatening causes of vomiting have a narrow window in which you can help these animals.
And if you just give them medications to stop the vomiting you might actually be missing that window.
Talk to us if your pet is vomiting
If your pet is vomiting repeatedly, cannot keep water down, seems painful, has blood in vomit or stool, or just seems unwell, our team can help you work out whether urgent assessment is needed.
Use this for the broader guide to digestive signs, testing and recovery.
Read the companion article for red flags and next steps.
Use this if vomiting is severe, repeated or linked with collapse, pain or bloating.
Useful if vomiting may be linked with a swallowed object.
Helpful when toxin exposure could be part of the story.
