Kennel Cough/ Bordatella

[crankybunny]

Hey Everyone,
Unfortunately, I took my pup to the emergency clinic last night due to her coughing hacking and dry heaving. She was diagnosed with kennel cough. i work at an animal hospital and thought I was doing the right thing by taking her with me so she wouldn't be home alone and so I could feed her lunch, but her very young immune system couldn't handle it. She did receive her Bordatella Vax 2 weeks ago, but I guess it is not totally effective yet. ANyway, we are in this already so now I'd just like to know what to expect. She is on an antibiotic Clamavox for a week or maybe longer depending on what my vet thinks. Does anyone have any experience with kennel cough? How long does it take to overcome? Any tricks to keeping my little girl comfortable? Thanks for any info.

 

[sgbtab]

kennel cough usally last around 3 weeks and needs to run it's course. it's like a cold for us humans. the antiboctics are for if she gets a bacteria not for the kennel cough itself.

 

[courtney323]

She did receive her Bordatella Vax 2 weeks ago, but I guess it is not totally effective yet. ANyway, we are in this already so now I'd just like to know what to expect. She is on an antibiotic Clamavox for a week or maybe longer depending on what my vet thinks. Does anyone have any experience with kennel cough? How long does it take to overcome? Any tricks to keeping my little girl comfortable? Thanks for any info.

As you probably know, the term "kennel cough" actually covers a wide array of canine colds (either bacterial or viral). The vaccine does NOT cover every strain -- not nearly. In addition to that, the (live) vaccine can actually cause KC in many cases. LOL I'm not a fan of it, as you can tell, and I don't vaccinate for it. Actually, the only time my dog has had "kennel cough" was right after a Bordatella vaccination.

At any rate, it will probably take her several weeks to overcome the symptoms (antibiotics are totally unnecessary, unless it's a bacterial infection that she has). Best of luck!

 

[Pearlywhirly]

Pearl gets it on occasion, she goes to work with me too. Her doc gave her Tussigon. This is a cough suppressant. It does nothing to shorten the duration of the kennel cough but makes it more bearable. You might ask if you can get some of that. Courtney's right on the antibiotics, kennel cough is viral which doesn't respond to that. Hope she gets better!

 

[jennw]

oh boy- i feel for you. jake's was just awful. he also caught it soon after his vaccine. i just kept him quiet and let him sleep all day. a drop of honey on a spoon helped when his throat sounded sore.

he was also on clavomox which gave him major diarrhea at first. just make sure she's eating and drinking plenty of water. adding a little yoghurt to her food will help her stomach.

it does take them a while to get back to their old selves. while jake was 90% better after 4 or 5 days, it took a long time to get his endurance back during playing. the worst part, though, was keeping him busy during the long quarantine!

hope she's feeling better soon- it's awful but she'll be fine.

 

[gussy98]

I feel your pain! On Friday, JoJo started hacking, but I thought he had eaten a stick or something and it was stuck, so I just decided to let it ride and see if he could work it out. He just got worse through the weekend, and Sunday night we were up all night listening to him. So I took him to the vet on Monday, thinking they would have to surgically remove something, and they took an xray and said he had bronchitis, and it was contagious, so not to bring my dogs to work for a week or so. (We own a grooming shop, and our dogs go to work with us most of the time.) When I got home, Roxy was coughing. Today, one of my daycare dogs was diagnosed with kennel cough. I went back to my vet and asked if it was possible that my dogs had been misdiagnosed, and she said yes because kennel cough is a form of bronchitis. So she told me all of the details I needed to know... I called and cancelled my appointments for the rest of the week. I'm so freaked out. I've had 15-20 dogs in the shop daily for the past 2 weeks, which is what the vet said the incubation period is. I'm hoping it will run it's course and not become some huge epidemic. I've never had anything like this happen before.
The other wierd thing is that my boxers got it, but not my other 3 dogs (at least not yet!). My 2 yr old skin son has a cold with a cough though... maybe he has kennel cough too????