Kennel Cough is very contagious and dogs can remain infectious for six to fourteen weeks after symptoms resolved. Dog to dog exposure occurs when an infected dog coughs or sneezes and a healthy dog inhales the aerosolized respiratory secretions.

The canine respiratory tract is coated with a protective lining of mucous, but if this lining is compromised an infection can take hold from the inhaled particles.

The result is inflammation of the larynx and trachea and it’s the inflammation that causes coughing. If the healthy dog’s respiratory tract is compromised by stressors such as travel, being housed, in a crowded environment, cold temperatures, environmental pollutants or infectious viruses that could be floating around then bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria

This bacterial defect the chief bacterial agents in kennel cough can enter the respiratory tract.

Bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria are usually accompanied by at least one other infectious agent, usually a virus, so kennel cough is actually multiple infections occurring at once and not just a single infection. This is one of the reasons that the vaccine is oftentimes not effective.

A small percent of cases kennel cough can progress to pneumonia requiring antibiotics in heart disease some type of treatment is needed to reduce the size of the heart and reduce the fluid in the airways.

Humidifier adding humidity to the air will calm and irritated airway, you can put on a humidifier in your pets room or put your pet in the bathroom and turn on the shower.

Remove the dog collar off any irritated airway will benefit from having less pressure put on it. Remove your dog’s collar and use a harness for restraint, avoid putting any pressure on your dog’s throat especially in chronic coughing cases such as in tracheal collapse herbal.

Most cases of kennel Cough occur in areas where dogs are super crowded with adequate ventilation and lots of warm air and a stressed immune system.

A dog good examples of these are boarding kennels, grooming shops and shelters. The universal symptom of bordetella infection is a persistent heart honking cough, a sudden dry hacking cough, sneezing, snorting, retching, gagging or vomiting.

In fact coughing to the point that dogs vomit in response to very light pressure to the trachea, or spasmodic cough when a dog is excited or exercising, are all really common symptoms of kennel cough.

If your dog has a totally healthy cough and then instantly has the spasmodic coughing, you need to be thinking about Kennel Cough. Your dog may also cough up foaming white phlegm or nasal or ocular secretions.

Occasionally there will be other signs of illness such as a runny nose, sneezing, depression, maybe a mild fever. Just like humans that have cold symptoms the duration of infection can be incredibly variable between dogs.

Kennel cough rarely causes appetite loss or lethargy ,so if your dog is showing these symptoms as well, there could be something else going on.

Symptoms usually occur 2 to 14 days after exposure and mild cases of kennel cough. Dogs usually continue to eat and they remain alert. When the condition is more serious there can be lethargy, loss of appetite,and the cold can actually migrate into life-threatening pneumonia.

Just like humans that have colds most of the time it doesn’t require hospitalization, but occasionally things colds can morph into other things like pneumonia.

And while most colds don’t require any type of hospitalization sometimes the infection progresses to a point where that is required. Most of the time severe cases of kennel cough primarily occurred Immunol-compromised dogs are in very young puppies.

Diagnosis of Kennel Cough

Diagnosis of kennel cough include taking a history of the symptoms of the dog in terms of what he’s physically experiencing but also any history of time spent at a boarding kennel, doggy daycare or other facility where there’s lots of dogs.

Bacterial cultures, viral isolation and blood work may be performed to identify the specific pathogens that’s causing the exact type of kennel cough. if the dog has symptoms that are really profound, like requiring hospitalization, which is actually quite rare.

Sometimes x-rays are done to check for pneumonia or bronchitis. kennel cough symptoms usually lasts between 10 and 20 days and can sometimes recur if there’s periods of stress.

most cases resolve on their own without any medical intervention so I don’t automatically recommend that you have to zip off to the veterinarian, especially for unnecessary antibiotics because antibiotics don’t address the viral component of this infection.

I always prefer to let the dog’s body heal itself naturally, during the acute phase of the illness I strongly recommend using a harness to prevent your dog’s collar from aggravating the situation, especially if they tend to pull a lot on their leash when they walk.

If your dog is coughing where he’s gagging and then seemingly he’s retching something up such as cuffing up a hairball, but that’s more typical of tracheal collapse. If the coughing is
more prolonged similar to that but even more forceful that going throughout the day and it happened and started all of a sudden then we’re we’re dealing with something like kennel cough.

Where as in if it’s more of a wet sounding cough and it happens when your dog lays down, or at night and in the morning that’s much more common with the cough that we see in heart disease,

You can also try humidifying the air. I personally add a few drops of pure lavender oil to help soothe the dog’s throat, and also with humidification you can also help decrease coughing spells.

Complete recovery from kennel cough can usually take up to three weeks in healthy dogs and twice as long in older patients, or those with underlying immunosuppressive conditions.

Puppies can also take a little bit longer to recover because their immune systems are not yet fully developed.

Since a serious episode of kennel cough can result in pneumonia, if your dog doesn’t start to improve on her own within about a week, or if the coughing becomes progressively worse, or if your dog sparks the fever, or stops eating those are all really important reasons to make an appointment with your veterinarian.

I also recommend seeing a veterinarian if you have a puppy with symptoms that go beyond typical symptoms of kennel cough. For example, if you see a change in breathing pattern, if your puppy has difficulty breathing, if there’s a loss of appetite or markedly diminished energy level are all reasons to visit your vet.