ADVICE PLEASE!

[MaxG]

Hi all,

Hoping some of the more experienced of you out there can give us some advice please!!...

To cut a long story short, Max (16mths) has been suffering with a form of kennel cough for just over 2 weeks now. He's been on several short doses of antibiotics & they've calmed it down but not gotten rid of it completely -he's still coughing first thing in the morning, late at night & when he gets over-excited. The vet checked him last week & said his glands weren't swollen & he didn't have a chest infection. In himself, he seems fine - still eating, drinking, playing, sleeping well, etc. He's been away from other dogs & only been having 'light' on-lead exercise, on the advice of the vet - he's very peeved at that, as you can imagine!!

He's due to finish his last lot of antibiotics tomorrow & the vet said that if he was still coughing (which he is) then she wanted to see him again,  in order to do some further investigation, to check there's nothing untoward growing in his lungs etc - she mentioned sedating him & putting some sort of tube down there & flushing some fluid through to then check for bacteria etc - does this sound right?!

On the one hand, we obviously want to do what's best for Max & make sure all is ok etc etc but on the other hand, we don't want to put him through anything overly unecessary & certainly don't want to keep pumping him full of tablets etc. if we can avoid it.

We keep reading that kennel cough can take several weeks to go & there's not always a lot you can do to treat it, other than waiting it out & making sure it doesn't develop into anything more serious.

So, what do you all think? Should we let the vet do this procedure or should we sit & wait for a week or so? Has anyone ever been in this position before themselves?

Any advice etc would be VERY welcome before tomorrow!!

Thanks,
Kath.
(& poor Max!) 

[clairep4]

Hi Kath,

Bella had a similar thing when she was about 5 months, she had a cough which lasted for about 6 weeks in the end. She was put on 3 different lots of antibiotics and the vet was then talking about washing out her lungs and nasty things like that as there didn't seem to be any underlying cause for it.

In the end we just had to really, really force her to rest, keep her warm and we then took her to the countryside for a week (away from nasty polluted London) and that seemed to clear it up.

It's horrible when it just goes on and on though... Hope Max gets well soon.

[MaxG]

Thanks Claire - I think that's the same thing that our vet is talking about - lung washing - sounds gruesome - did you not have it done then?

We're trying to keep Max quiet & rested & calm & not take him out if it's remorely damp etc but the weather is a bit of a nightmare at the moment & he's really hating his limited walking - we feel so mean but we're sticking with it - he's only getting 2 x 30 min on-lead walks a day on the vet's instruction - he'd usually get at least double that & most of it would be off-lead, romping round fields etc!! 

[Saffie]

When Saffie was speyed she came home with a nasty cough (plus a scar of course). I found that a spoonful of infant cough medicine in the morning and at night worked a trick and also no collar walks, using a no-pull narness instead.

She would get worse when she got excited but how do you stop a cocker getting excited? Hope this helps.

[CAG]

kennel cough can leave them very chesty , even when the kennel cough has actually gone ,i allways notice that weeks after when you take them for a walk they can`t stand any pressure on the lead. it seems to leave throat and chest very weak.   It`s a horrible complaint and herpes can come from it i think,   i supose it`s like us haveing a cold and then getting cold sores .  If anybody else has heard anythink about kennel cough and herpes being related could you say.

[MaxG]

UPDATE -

Thankfully, the vet said she reckons we can adopt a 'wait & see' approach for the next week or so - yippee!! No nasty invasive procedures just yet. 

[clairep4]

Glad to hear he doesn't have to have the lung washing malarky - we managed to avoid it with Bella, just kept her really quiet. It was May/June last year when she had it but it kept raining etc and the damp had the same effect as it's having on Max, she'd be visibly worse on really wet days and on days when she'd had more excercise she'd then wake up the next day really coughing again, poor little thing.

Try and keep Max nice and dry and warm, lots and lots of rest and tlc... 

[MaxG]

Ta Claire - will do - he HATES the light exercise but we've been trying to do as much playing etc in the house & garden as poss & we're walking him inbetween showers!! He's getting loads of TLC - as always - little monkey gives us those sad eyes & does a pathetic little cough & we're putty in his hands - hubby reckons he's putting it on so that he gets some Benylin - he seems to have developed a taste for it & will happily lick it off the spoon!!! 

It's weird - it's definately worse in the mornings & at night - he's fine during the main part of the day - even after a walk & some ball chasing etc - the only time he coughs then is if he gets over excited. He coughed last night when I got in from work cos he'd just woken up & ran down the stairs to greet me, but 10 mins later when hubby came in, he was fine! 

Fingers crossed the next couple of weeks will see it off once & for all!! 

[cazza]

Kath, just caught up with this, ((Hugs)) to Max hope he gets over it soon

Jock had kennel cough once after being at the kennels it was horrible, felt so sorry for him but not much you can do for them. (apart from rest keep warm and antibiotics, and loads and loads of TLC)

Keep us up dated on his progress, hope it clears before the horrible wash out has to happen