5 month old puppy coughing and choking very often

jadechain

New member
Hello! Before I explain, I just want to say that we have brought her to the ER vet twice and have called our primary vet and scheduled the soonest appointment we could for him to see her. I'm just seeking further advice or assurance because I'm super worried about her. :(

About a week ago our 5 month old puppy started choking/gagging pretty much every time she got excited and sometimes wakes herself out of her sleep to do it. It starts with wheezing and progresses into a louder sort of throat clearing noise until she finally opens her mouth and does a sort of gag/loud cough. A lot of times it continues another cycle or two until she finally stops. It happens out of nowhere most of the time but can reliably happen almost every time she sees a new dog or person outside and gets excited and tugs on her harness (we don't use a collar). I would say that overall it happens about 30-40 times a day. She is normal and playful otherwise, still eating and drinking, but she has been pretty aggressive about eating grass whenever we go outside lately. Not sure if that's related in any way. Both ER vet visits say that she seems fine and healthy and because of her age didn't think any further procedures like an airway exam or x-rays were necessary but I'm just not convinced that this isn't something that they're missing because it doesn't really happen when she's actually in there with them examining her. I'm at a bit of a loss for what to do because I hate to see her suffering like this and it's stressful that the vet doesn't seem to have answers.'

She is up to date on her vaccines, has been vaccinated for kennel cough (it started happening the day after her vaccine coincidentally) and has healthy vitals. She was dewormed for roundworm and is taking antibiotics for giardia. I took her temperature last night through her armpit since we don't have anything but a normal human thermometer and it came up 100.2, which from what I read is normal since you should add 1 degree if you use the armpit method.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I've also uploaded some videos of it happening if that helps.


 
@jadechain It’s probably a cold. Or allergies. It’s horrible sounding but that sounds a lot like our pups when they got colds/flu. So much coughing and hacking for like two weeks. But they were eating fine and playing fine.

She might be having seasonal allergies which exacerbate the mucus and make it extra bad. Talk to your vet to see what the safe amount of Zyrtec would be and see if that helps. It’s a pretty benign medicine, so it’s not gonna hurt. At worst, it’ll do nothing.

We are about a month out from the worst of the coughing and it still happens occasionally but huge leap from coughing so much that they couldn’t sleep!
 
@carlisle1997 Thank you so much, I really hope it's something as simple as that. All the vets have been saying that it's probably not allergies because she's so young and hasn't been exposed to enough to even develop them. Not really sure how accurate that is though. Hope your pups are doing well!
 
@jadechain Just came from the vet.. they wouldn't let dogs in with a cough like this because of covid19 concerns since dogs can get it and pass it on. What ever it might be.. here's hoping for a speedy recovery.
 
@jadechain Ugh. My 12 yo beagle mix has done this allll of her life and there is no explanation. The vet has prescribed some pills for when she has a particularly bad day and they help a lot.
 
@jadechain Since you've gone to the ER vet already, they probably ruled this out, but sometimes coughing and gagging can be related to heart defects as it causes fluid to pool in the lungs. Just an idea though, ask if there is any heart murmur next time she's looked at. I know friends who have had their dog's heart murmurs missed by different vets and then heard by others.
 
@jadechain Honestly, that sounds exactly like kennel cough. The vaccine for kennel cough is nowhere near 100% effective (it's kind of like the flu vaccine - there are multiple strains and the vaccine doesn't cover all of them). Plus, one day is probably not long enough for the vaccine to produce proper antibody protection anyway.

Look up videos of what kennel cough sounds like. It really seems like the most likely diagnosis here.
 
@zrinka Basically just a physical exam and they said they tried to force her to cough and didn't have any luck. Both times they said that if we wanted her to have any further procedures done she'd have to be admitted overnight for the surgeon to be able to put her at the front of the line to get a sedated airway exam. No treatment other than telling us to not use a collar and to put some over the counter nasal drops on her nose in the morning and evening which we'd been doing but they don't seem to help at all.
 

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