Cough

[davey 310]

My dog has started to cough quite bad, just had his booster jab wormed and flea now this . Was out the other night and he had coughing fit and he eats a lot of grass what is best thing to stop it

[sandymere 8,261]

Could be many causes and treatment will depend on which one. If its post runs it could be kennel cough, exercised induced bronchospasm or even heart failure to mention just three. A little more detail may help or vet if not sure. I’ve done a piece on EIB that I’ve copied below and I’ve posted on kennel cough on this forum linked below.

Eating grass probably has a number of causes, it’s a good source nutrients in the spring when young and is likely a way to settle a stomach when upset. Dogs can't say when they feel a little out of sorts and those under stress through increasing exercise etc may well develop gastritis, inflammation of the stomach, and or an overly acid stomach and this may well give heartburn type symptoms and as a dog can't get Gaviscon perhaps the grass is the best treatment available to them.

 

 

 

 

http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/topic/222356-kennel-cough/page__st__15__p__2294816__hl__+kennel%20+cough__fromsearch__1#entry2294816

 

 

Exercise induced bronchial-spasm. (A layman’s perspective)

 

Its not uncommon to come across questions and references to canine athletes presenting with laryngeal /bronchial symptoms post exercise, often presenting as coughing soon after or the day following high intensity exercise. My first experiences of this go back some 20 years to when I trained greyhounds under permit to Henlow Stadium, I noted that dogs had a tendency to cough for a day or two following racing/trailing after having a lay off. I’ve also come across similar in coursing dogs and working lurchers when they have had a particularly hard run and as it seemed to settle once the animal was at full fitness I’d put it down to lack of condition, the diagnosis seemed to fit as the episodes reduced as the animal gained racing condition without the need for further intervention.

 

Later in life I became a ************working in ************** with an interest in respiratory conditions. One lunch break whilst reading posts on a greyhound forum I saw a question referring to a dog coughing the morning after a race. The advice offered was all about kennel cough, with a variety of suggested treatments varying from antibiotics to garlic. Taking into account the time span of evening racing and a symptomatic cough the next morning it would be unusual for a viral or bacterial infection to show so quickly. It brought back memories of my racing days and what I’ d called an unfit cough, now as a ********* I had the facilities and knowledge to allow me to look for a proper cause and diagnosis as an alternative to kennel cough and so this is what I set out to do.

 

I searched veterinary journals and web sites but found little in the way of answer so I began to look at medical and nursing journals for similar symtomology. Exercise Induced Bronchial-spasm, (EIB), this is often termed exercise induced asthma, had obvious correlation and seemed the nearest reasonable diagnosis. EIB is often a diagnosis by exclusion rather than anything else; sufferers often don’t have compromised peak flow in normal circumstance and no underlying diagnosis of asthma. It can be a problem even in Olympic athletes presenting as chest tightness, dizziness and commonly a post exercise cough. The exact causes are not really known but a suggested area is hyperinflation and drying of the lungs causing inflammation and a resultant increased mucosal production. The increased mucus is then coughed up for a period until the lungs recover. The symptoms seem to reduce on increasing fitness so the correlation seemed to make sense. Once the human or dog is fit it will be able to work at a lower level of lung capacity and so have a lower level of the drying stimuli and symptoms will subside.

 

There are treatments used for human athletes that include inhalers and anti mucosal medications but if increased fitness is a viable treatment in dogs I would question the need of pharmaceutical intervention. I’m sure in some human athletes there is an underlying aspect of asthma and then the drugs will have a major effect but feel that this is less likely to be the case in canine athletes. So back to the original question rather than jumping straight into kennel cough treatments for a cough the morning we after a hard run we should consider EIB as an alternative. Perhaps what is required is a look at our pre event preparation and take on the advice given to humans with this type of condition, warm up well, cool down well, maintain condition to a reasonable degree and build up appropriate fitness after a lay off.

 

 

[sandymere 8,261]

update in this subject "It has been proposed that the J ALLERGY CLIN IMMUNOL VOLUME nnn, NUMBER nn WEILER ET AL 4.e21 repetitive epithelial injury repair cycle in response to breathing high volumes of unconditioned air over long periods can result in changes in the contractile properties of BSM as a result of exposure to plasma-derived products from exudation.E117,E415,E416 This might be representative of an ‘‘airway injury’’ resulting in a form of overuse syndrome in contrast to EIB, which results from airway smooth muscle constriction from the osmotic release of bronchoconstrictive mediators from resident inflammatory cells (eg, mast cells and eosinophils). In the case of the winter athlete, it is common to see high prevalence of BHR to direct challenge tests, such as methacholine, and low prevalence of BHR to indirect tests.E417,E418 If airway injury is suspected in an athlete, treatment recommendations can include the limitation of activity rather than introduction of the pharmacologic agents used in the treatment of asthma and EIB.E419,E4"

from

http://www.aaaai.org/Aaaai/media/MediaLibrary/PDF%20Documents/Practice%20and%20Parameters/Exercise-Induced-Bronchoconstriction-Practice-Parameter-2016.pdf

[foxdropper 17,092]

In layman terms if your cough is prolonged ,roughly 2 weeks then goes ,your dog has had kennel cough .There is no cure and it just gas to take its course but is very infectious. If it's short term more likely to be an allergy to pollen or what sandymere said .