This week's topic is THE DREADED KENNEL COUGH

Another problem caused by government funding cuts to the Royal Parks!



THE DREADED KENNEL COUGH

Your dog has suddenly started coughing with a dry,  "goose honking", hacking, raspy sound that makes you think  that he may have been secretly puffing 40 a day for  many years and hanging out with the wrong crowd. He looks frighteningly ill.  He wont move, he won't eat and he is very listless. And  he may look and act like the dog in this picture.


What he/she probably has is, kennel cough - doggy bronchitis - caused by a highly contagious virus that is easily passed around from dog to dog. (Cat owners will be relieved to know that cats dont suffer from this). It goes without saying that if your dog is coughing and loses its appetite then you must take it to the vet right away.


Here's a simple test used by vets for distinguishing a harmless harump from a possible serious infection like kennel cough.


If you press gently on the front of the dog's throat, just above the collar,  and they go into a coughing fit, this is the sign of kennel cough. The virus irritates the lining of the trachea and any pressure on it, brings on coughing.  If your dog doesnt have kennel cough, however, any gentle pressure on the throat probably won't have any effect.


Kennel cough gets its name from the past when dogs stayed in kennels that exposed them to germs from other dogs that had a touch of the disease. Thankfully, most kennels these days, request that dogs are immunised by a vaccine, before checking in for their holidays.  But in the real world, kennel cough can be caught where there are a lot of dogs, ie the park. It only takes one sniff by an infected dog to pass on kennel cough.


Should your dog get kennel cough, its best to keep it at home for a few days.  It takes 7-10 days for kennel cough to go through the system and in some cases can be very harmful to puppies and elderly dogs so it is advisable to keep away from other dogs until the dog recovers.


The vet will give your dog a course of antibiotics but until they click in, your dog will feel and act very poorly. It will have a hacking cough, dull eyes, look in real pain and not want to move.


Here are some home remedies to make life as comfortable as possible for your dog.  This is what I have found works especially well:  A good 'at home' cough remedy:

NATURAL COUGH SYRUP. Lemon and honey can soothe any sore throat.   Mix 2 tbsp of honey, 1 tsp of lemon juice and 1/2 cup of water. Give it to your dog twice daily, 1 tbsp for an average sized (50 lb) dog, 1tsp for a cat . Homeopathic cough syrups are also very effective. I use pedriatric Benylin as it contains no codein, paracetamol or aspirin and is used on babies and therefore safe to use on dogs.


Buy a bottle of pediatric Benylin and using a syringe (without the needle) that you can get from your vet or the pharmicist, dose the dog according to its weight. Or using a teaspoon, the dosage is 2 teaspoons to a dog weighing 20 Iilos and over, 1 teaspoon to a 10 -kilo dog and 1/2 a teaspoon to a smaller dog. Check with your vet to make sure these doses are right for your pet.  if poochie is coughing more than once an hour than give it  baby Benylin as often as you feel it will help to ease the congestion and let it get some sleep. As with all coughs and colds, night time is bad and this is when the Benylin comes in very handy for giving instant relief. Keep giving Benylin over the days until the cough becomes a heerramph rather than a wheezing honk.


If you have a small electric fan, let it blow on the dog at night as this will stop it getting congested and help it to breathe. Think of how you feel when you have a very bad cold. Dont you sleep better when there is air blowing around you?   If the room is hot and in some cases smoky, this will set off a coughing fit and keep your dog in pain. Let the dog sleep in a cool room with some air coming in.


Take off the collar as this can sometimes make the dog cough even more because its air waves are being restricted.


When your dog is coughing a lot and seems to be very congested, take it for a slow walk outside as fresh air will help to clear the airways, but dont drag them for a a long walk and  over tire them. I watched a woman  one morning in the park, dragging her coughing dog, who looked in obvious discomfort. When I remarked that her dog didnt look well, she replied. "he's a lazy so-and-so who just doesnt want to walk." When the poor animal collapsed she panicked and went into hysterics.  There is no acounting for brainless people! Don't they ever learn to read the dog's body language?  It lives with you 24/7. An animal will always show you that something is wrong with it and its not rocket science reading the body language.


I am a great believer in the power of homeopathy and when my 18 year old blind dachshund caught kennel cough last September from travelling in communal kennels on the ferry from Barcelona to Palma. (You can imagine how many thousands of un-vaccinated dogs had travelled in those kennels.) She was very.very poorly and we really thought we were going to lose her but I dosed her up on Bryonia 6c three times a day for one week.  It interacted very well with the Synulox given by the vet and certainly stopped her coughing at night. 

                              Here's the canine equivalent of "na na na na nah"!

See you next week and hold this thought ....

"You can say any stupid thing to a dog, and the dog will give you this look that says, `My God, you're so RIGHT! I NEVER would've thought of that!'"






Dawn ("-")