We were out of town and had a house sitter to take care of the dog. Her bark sounds awful. I’m not sure if she just barked a lot the last day or if it was the whole time.
Should I wait a day and if it doesn’t go away take her to the vet? Or should I take her to the vet now?
I am at work today but my daughter is home and will try to keep her from barking at the squirrels.
Other than the barking she is acting very subdued, but that is probably because she is mad at us for leaving her for five days.
My dog used to do that all the time when we would leave for the weekend. As we would walk out the door we could hear her barking, and the as we came back a few days later she would try to start barking but it was as if she lost her voice. It would normally come back a day or two later and was never a problem. I wouldn’t worry about it too much unless it lasts a while. This happend to my dog EVERY time we left for more than a day.
We used to have a dauchshaund when we were younger. One day, some birds built a nest right under the air conditioner in my mother’s room. As soon as she heard them, Princess leapt up on my mother’s bed (to get as close to the birds as possible) and started barking. And barking. And barking. And barking. We would pull her away, and she’d run right back. If we pulled her out of the room and closed the door, she bark by the door. After close to 24 hours, she was so hoarse that her barks were barely audible. She was still going at it strong, but you just couldn’t hear her anymore.
She got tired of it soon after and within a day or two her voice returned to normal.
Another don’t worry vote - the same thing would happen to our mongrel after a week in the kennels she really sounded hoarse (barking in competition with other dogs no doubt!). She was always back to her vocal self after a day or so.
This doesn’t sound like your case at all but later in life she suffered a partial paralysis of the vocal chords, seemingly a common trait in labradors, which meant that her barks became more like short coughs. This too was temporary (although it lasted for months). If your dog has any Lab blood and the symptoms you describe last for a week you might want to take her to the vet for a check. IIRC there was an operation she could have had to rectify the vocal chord thing but due to her age we never bothered and in any case it seemed to work itself out. But as I said it sounds more like overuse than anything more serious.
Never had a hoarse dog, although somedays I wish our dog would develop vocal nodes or something to tone her bark down a little.
The cat we had when I was a kid spent a week at a kennel while we were on vacation. She must have meowed the entire time and could barely make any sound when we picked her up. Her voice came back after a few days, but it had transformed from a sweet meow into the kitty equivalent of a smoker’s rasp which lasted the rest of her life. She could have made a great living as a jazz singer.