Summary
Dog hiccups, like human hiccups, are involuntary diaphragm spasms often triggered by excitement, eating/drinking too fast, fatigue, spicy food, or stomach gas. Most episodes are short-lived. To help, calm your dog with gentle rubs, offer water, use slow feeders, try light exercise, or distract them. Puppies hiccup more frequently. Consult a vet if hiccups last over an hour, are accompanied by breathing difficulties, wheezing, coughing, sneezing, or occur on hot days, as these could indicate an underlying medical issue. Usually, dog hiccups are harmless and resolve on their own.
What are Dog Hiccups?
Rapid compression of the Diaphragm causes hiccups. The Diaphragm is a thin, strong muscle that helps breathe and separates a dog’s abdomen from its chest cavity.
Breathing contracts the Diaphragm and makes space for the lungs to expand. Diaphragm breathing is always regular, but sudden spasms cause hiccups.
Hiccups are slight spasms due to an involuntary action of the Diaphragm, and the closing of the vocal folds accompanies it.
The Diaphragm may contract several times. The common notion is that hiccups are due to quick drinking or eating, exertion due to playing, stress, or gas-related problems.
Puppies get more hiccups as they are more excited and playful and tend to gulp the food quickly. The symptoms of reverse sneezing that results in a swift breath intake are often mistaken for hiccups in dogs.
What Causes Dogs Hiccups?
Occasional hiccups are common, but there might be an underlying medical disorder if your pet is often troubled by hiccups. Low calcium levels cause symptoms like a synchronous diaphragm, where the Diaphragm of your dog spasms involuntarily.
Few other conditions, like windpipe inflammation or gastroesophageal reflux, can result in more hiccups.
Few dogs face chronic hiccups due to brain or chest tumors. A few common causes of hiccups are
Stress and Overexcitement
Dogs are emotional by nature, and that is the main reason why we gel with our pets. When your dog gets stressed or overexcited, it may pant, increasing its heart rate and cortisol levels. Shorter and shallow breaths due to excitement irritate the Diaphragm. Puppies are more liable to hiccups due to excitement.
Tiredness
When your pet is tired and sleepy, it may yawn. Ait trapped during yawn gone amiss will result in excess air being swallowed and unsettle the Diaphragm. Hence, your pet should be allowed to sleep when you find it tired or yawning.
Drinking or Eating Quickly
Suppose your dog is very hungry or thirsty. In that case, it may try eating food or drinking water without stopping to breathe, which will result in swallowing excess air. This action is sure to start hiccups. Sudden air intake will irritate the diaphragm muscle, causing it to contract.
Extreme cold or hot water results in irritation in the throat and its nerves and will result in hiccups in the dog. Eating quickly could lead to trapped air bubbles and cause hiccups.
Spicy Food and Stomach Gas
Spicy food is a common cause of hiccups in dogs. Spicy food results in stomach gas and makes your dog drink water quickly/.
Spicy food will stimulate neuron activity in the Diaphragm, leading to hiccups. Stomach gas due to spicy food is good as it removes excess gas in the stomach.
Medicines
Medicines like benzodiazepines and several antibiotics may be another reason for hiccups in your pets. Few medicines lead to throat irritation and induce acid reflux. This might result in dog hiccups.
Hiccups can also be due to other medical issues like Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Asthma, and respiratory tumors. Labored or irregular breathing due to continuous hiccups would require a visit to the vet.
How to Get Rid of Dog Hiccups?
Once you know the causes of your dog’s hiccups, you must find a way to eliminate them. Most of the time, the hiccups will stop by themselves, but if it continues, you will need to find a solution.
Relax Your Pet with Tummy Rubs
Helping your pet relax will help stop hiccups. As the diaphragm of your dog is below its lungs and around the abdomen, in case of hiccups, you can make it lie down and give a nice tummy rub.
Massaging the muscles of your dog’s abdomen will help relax the Diaphragm. Giving a tummy rub will help your pet’s breathing return to normal and stop the hiccups.
A tummy rub is also an excellent way to connect with your pet. Once your pet feels calm and relaxed, the hiccups will automatically stop.
Give Water
Drinking water quickly can lead to hiccups in a dog. However, the same water can help stop your dog’s hiccups. Water flows down the windpipe and provides a cooling effect to your dog’s long esophagus.
The cold water that passes between the lungs and Diaphragm helps the Diaphragm to contract. The Diaphragm warms your pet’s body temperature and helps it relax. Drinking cold water does not necessarily stop the hiccups but will not cause any harm to your dog.
Use a Puzzle Eater Bowl for Slow-eating
Dogs are known to be fast eaters, just like wolves, as they are descendants of wolves. Your dog might tend to eat fast and overeat when it wants to compete with any other dog-eating food.
There are ways to stop dogs from eating fast or gulping down water. You can use a puzzle eater bowl or a slow feeder to feed your pet.
Food in regular bowls can be eaten quickly and easily, but navigating through a puzzle eater bowl is challenging, as is eating more food in a single bite.
Exercise Lightly
If your dog is suffering from many hiccups, you can stop it by helping it relax. Exercise helps it keep active and fresh.
A long walk will change your pet’s breathing and help it relax and calm down. Exercise can relieve your dog of hiccups. Outdoor activities like taking it for a short walk or playing ball with children will stimulate your dog. It will change its breathing and slow down the heartbeat.
Distract Your Dog
You can help your dog relax by making its drinking water sweet. Adding honey to drinking water will also help soothe your pet’s throat.
Hiccups can be stopped by helping your pet relax. You must avoid Xylitol, a common sugar substitute since it harms your dog.
Change the Diet
Food high in grains, like corn and wheat, can trigger hiccups in dogs more than low-grain foods. So, it is better to change your dog’s diet and include more low-grain food.
Many other types of food may trigger hiccups so that you can avoid all of those.
Hiccups seem to spasm the entire body of pupped; however, it does not affect bigger ones much.
Can Puppies Get Hiccups?
It’s impossible not to grin when you see a puppy produce its first-ever hiccup sounds while compressing its tummy and looking at you. After the first laughs, some pet parents may begin to question whether hiccups are typical or if they suggest an issue.
However, below are some possible reasons puppies can suffer from hiccups.
- Sudden excitements.
- Stress and anxiety.
- Changes in respiratory cycles.
- Excessive exercise and jumping around.
- Quick drinking and eating.
- Overeating.
- Underlying medical conditions.
When to Worry About Your Dog’s Hiccups?
Just like in humans, hiccups are natural to dogs. Nevertheless, you must check the symptoms with the vet if your pet seems to have difficulty breathing, makes a wheezing sound during hiccups, or has difficulty breathing.
In a few cases, when the hiccups last more than 60 minutes, it indicates some other medical situation and needs a veterinarian to be consulted.
Regular hiccups that last longer than a normal one should be taken seriously. Hiccups and problems like coughing, sneezing, and reverse sneezing not caused by exercise can indicate pneumonia, asthma, or pericarditis (heart-related problems).
Overexertion triggers heatstroke on hot days. Heatstroke is common in certain breeds of dogs with short nuzzles. If you have an active dog suffering from non-stop hiccups on a hot day, it is time to visit the vet.
Hiccups are involuntary diaphragm muscle spasms forcing your dog to inhale. The glottis (a component of your pet’s vocal cords) abruptly shuts, preventing air intake. And then there’s a glitch called hiccups.
Dogs acquire hiccups as they breathe whenever they drink or eat too quickly. Still, they’re also caused by stress, weariness, or enthusiasm. Some specialists feel that your puppies’ and adult dogs’ innocuous spasms might reduce stomach gas and discomfort.
In conclusion, hiccuping is entirely safe and may even be beneficial. They’ll appear and disappear repeatedly, but your pup will soon outgrow them.
