Puppy coughing and choking a lot

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 She may still have kennel cough. We adopted a puppy that had just been vaccinated for kennel cough like two days before we got him. He was a likely a stray previously. He was about 4 months when we got him and literally the second we got home, he was hacking and coughing and wheezing to the point where he could not fully breathe for over a minute. It would mostly happen when he got excited about something. Vet prescribed us antibiotics and he was fine!

Think of it like a cold, it takes a couple of days to be symptomatic after you’ve been exposed to it. So even if your pup was vaccinated the day before, she may have not been showing symptoms but already had it.
 

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