Protecting your beloved dog from the "Sneaky Canine Cough!"
Your dog doesn’t need to be in the kennels to get Kennel Cough!
Kennel Cough, or more correctly, Canine Infectious Tracheobronchitis, is a highly contagious infection that causes a persistent cough sometimes lasting up to 3 weeks...it is annoying!
Most often it is a bacterium known as Bordetella Bronchiseptica, but sometimes it brings a few friends to the party in your dog’s trachea, viruses like parainfluenza and adenovirus type 2.
The disease is transmitted via oronasal contact with aerosolized respiratory secretions, with direct dog-to-dog contact and via contaminated fomites such as toys and food bowls. As COVID-19 has demonstrated in people, one cough from a kennel-cough infected dog sends thousands of droplets into the air, each one carrying millions of infectious organisms waiting to infect the next dog. Crowded situations with poor air circulation and lots of warm air such as boarding kennels, obedience class, the local park, veterinary hospital waiting rooms and grooming parlours are the usual culprits. However, it can be transmitted at home through fences and gates.
For dogs, it is an annoying, goose honk-like cough (most people describe is as their dog having something stuck in its throat) but occasionally dog’s will get a nasal discharge and sneeze. Most dogs will carry on with normal doggy activities like eating, playing, and licking various bodily parts, they just cough while doing so.
And cough.
And cough.
And cough.
And then, for variety, they cough some more.
The cough is tiring, exhausting and annoying. For everyone. For you, for the cat, for your houseplants…I bet even Siri is done with it at this point and is about to order some cough mixture all on its own!
Fortunately for most dogs, the cough is where it ends. However, in older debilitated dogs, dogs with co-morbidities such as Diabetes and cancer, and the flat faced (brachycephalic) dogs such as Bulldogs, Boston Terriers and Pekingese, the disease may progress further and result in a fatal pneumonia.
For most of us, one night of our dog coughing is enough for us to rush off to the vet! This may not be entirely necessary, unless your dog is acting sick, or stops eating and drinking.
If your dog is one of the higher risk patients
it is recommended that you be extra vigilant.
Treatment may vary significantly. Antibiotics may shorten the course in some cases so they are often prescribed, but may not entirely be necessary. Anti-inflammatories to alleviate the airway inflammation that drives the cough, cough suppressants and other medication may be prescribed.
If you are taking your dog to the vet with an acute onset cough, please phone ahead and book an appointment advising them of your dog’s condition. It would be better for your dog to remain outside, so that other dogs in reception are not exposed.
In Durban we have experienced many Kennel Cough outbreaks over the last 10 years and your dog is always at risk. For this reason we believe that Kennel Cough should be regarded as a core vaccination – done with the routine annual vaccination. There is nothing worse than your dog coming in for surgery and developing Kennel Cough a week later.
We currently recommend all dogs coming in for elective surgery have an intranasal vaccination at least 3-4 days prior to admission.
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