Last night my dog Buddy started coughing. He has done this from time to time in the past few years, maybe two or three times a year. It’s a gagging sound, like the sound he might make if he had a piece of grass or a hair caught in his throat. He hasn’t thrown up. Yesterday, both dogs spent all day inside because it was raining, so he didn’t ingest anything from the yard. He’s about 9 years old.
Since last night he has had these coughing/gagging fits every few hours with maybe a dozen or so coughs each time. Other than that he seems fine, not lethargic, eating/pooping, sleeping okay-- although he did wake up coughing during the night.
Do dogs get colds or coughs due to allergies? I’ve got a bit of a lingering allergy cough myself.
Any thoughts on this?
I’m thinking of that episode of *Seinfeld *where Kramer had a cough but he didn’t want to go to the doctor, so he found a dog with a cough and took HIM to the vet to get medicine…
There’s this thing called ‘kennel cough’, which dogs can get. Sounds kind of like what you’ve described, the few times my dogs have had it. (I’m not a vet.) Do you take your dogs to daycare or anything? Mine got it there. (Again, not a vet, so I don’t know how they get it.)
Good question. It does indeed sound like kennel cough, but no, my dogs never go to day care or to a kennel. They do say hello to other dogs in the neighborhood when I take them walking, but the greetings usually don’t involve the end that coughs.
Also, they’ve both been on heartworm meds continuously for years and just tested negative for heartworms last month.
I found out my dog (a Havanese) had a heart condition when she was around ten years old. A few years later, she started coughing, particularly at night, and would no longer crawl under the bed covers with me even when the weather was cold.
Eventually I found out she had trouble getting enough oxygen into her bloodstream due to her bad heart. Coughing was a way of getting more air into her lungs.
She lived until last February, when she died at the age of 18. But her condition deteriorated greatly in the last year and a half of her life. At the end, she was taking a variety of medications just to keep her heart going.
Most of the dogs I’ve seen recently with the signs you are describing have tested positive for Mycoplasma cynos. Luckily, this responds quite well to azithromycin.
This is what happened with my about 10 year old Rottie; it was congestive heart failure (the beginning of it). He was on medication for a while and passed maybe a year and a half later. I hope your pup is just having something minor.
I will take him to the vet. Let me add that when he’s excited and jumping all around, like when he sees we’re going for a walk- spinning in circles, running to the door and back to me when I’m not moving fast enough- this exertion/activity does not make him cough.
This time of year (every year) our dogs get various burrs on them while frolicking in the woods. Invariably some ore missed when I brush them out. The dogs remove and swallow a few and hack/gag for a few hours.
I have an appointment at the vet tomorrow morning. I plan to take Buddy, too. Ba-dum-BUM!
I take the doggies for a 20 minute walk twice each day and he does not cough on the walks. Is it possible to pick up kennel cough from just nosing other dogs (nose to nose) that he meets on walks?
It’s highly contagious, so I would say, yeah, they could get it from brief contact. It’s similar to how you could pick up a cold by shaking hands with someone who had covered their mouth when they coughed, then you put your hand to your mouth at some point.
There is a vaccination for it. My dogs get it every six months, but that’s because our boarding kennel requires it that often. I think officially the vaccine is good for a year.
Buddy went to the vet today and had a chest x-ray and a complete senior citizen exam. He does have a mild bronchial infection and got an antibiotic shot and some cough medicine (pills). His heart looks and sounds good. Thanks for all the discussion.
Oh my.
