Since I'm new here, I'll preface this with a bit about my particular dog.

Mo is 7 years old. I got him in February 2011 when our local animal shelter was out of heat and water due to a problem with the propane in my state. All the other animals had gone to foster by the time we called to offer to take one or two. 20 minutes later - they called us back and a woman had dropped off a chihuahua. We didn't know his size or age at the call, but we went and picked him up.

Now apparently the woman dropping him off asked for his coat back and they refused, so you can understand that when this guy came home with us I was sympathetic..

My roommate has always wanted a chihuahua. But as it turns out, I was the one worried about possibly ending up adopting a dog - and he won me over within hours. She realized she's still a cat person (*snicker*) but If I can help it, the rest of my life will include one of these guys.

So I have NO idea about his history, she told the shelter he was 6 years old. So he's about 7 now, as far as we know. We got him fixed and his shots (yes, he didn't have them). So far he seems pretty healthy, happy and content. He's roughly 4 lbs, eats all he wants to eat but doesn't overeat. He's got the pretty natural image of the small, fawn colored Chihuahua, more or less. Tiny, his fur is so thin on his belly he's bare there.

However when he drinks water (does not do this with food), he drinks so fast he inevitably throws some of it up afterwards. Outside of the unpleasantness of this, I'm not sure if this is just a habit that he has developed from possibly not having a lot of access to water before? He does pick up his food and run off with it, and unless I help him eat away from my other dog and my cats, he doesn't like to eat.

So I think it might be some kind of fear that he will lose his food/water? But if anyone has any idea if it may be caused by something else? I would appreciate the input.

I have seen dogs do this just simply because they drank
too much water too fast. Kind of like baby spit up.

Until you can discuss it with your vet, you could try
giving him smaller amounts of water in the bowl and then
just continue to refill as needed to slow him down a bit.

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My 4 year old Chi does the same. Makes a hack and yack and a little water comes up. My vet had no concern when i mentioned it.

Our dobermans will occasionally do this, and it sometimes causes them to burp up food. If they seem to be going at the water too intensely, we'll say 'enough now' and encourage them to take a break from drinking. That seems to relax the trance they get into.

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Thanks guys. I honestly wish I /could/ really afford to take him to the vet but at the moment the funds are lacking and I no longer near a vet that I trust. Both the ones here seem to be very.. monetarily focused.

I miss the vet I had in Texas! I was only there for 6 months, but gosh he was wonderful!

I'm pretty sure it's just the drinking too fast. Right now we have a large industrial sized bowl that all the critters drink out of regularly. It gets changed twice a day. But I have a large dog and 4 cats in my house. Mo drinks from it only, and we have smaller bowls around the house. I may have to just try re-arranging one to be closer to the spot he likes. But he's incredibly set in his ways and I can't really swap out that bowl something his size without making all the rest of the animals confused.

I've seen food bowls that prevent the dogs from eating too fast, but he's so careful with his food that it's only the water that is a problem and I have no idea if one of those would work!

I'll have a try at giving him a command to slow down. He's an incredibly stubborn little guy. Well behaved enough to be manageable. Once we got him into a routine with going outside and got him fixed. But it's evident someone did not train him or care. He had absolutely no manners.

So far we've managed some minor training but for the most part if it's not relating to going outside or inside and such, he doesn't listen and his own habits are not very good.

It sounds like a common thing with some dogs, but have you checked his mouth and teeth? I wouldn't worry about it unless you notice any problems.

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Maybe you could try using a water bottle. My dogs drink out of water bottles because one of them tanks up like your dog and sometimes barfs. It's easy to hear her drinking from the bottle and after a little bit we tell her to stop.

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His teeth are healthy as far as I can tell, white and as far as I can see he has most of them. No gum distress either. I'll try the water bottle.