Sunday 29 June 2008

more about kennel cough

Penny seems much better already but we are trying to make sure she takes it easy for a while. Normally we try to walk for about an hour but today we just strolled along our local streets for ten minutes. It was a great chance to smarten her up on walking nicely on lead because we weren't headed anywhere in particular and we could turn back towards home every time she tightened the lead.

Which brings me to why I'm writing about kennel cough again. Lately it has seemed as if Penny was pullingl so hard on the lead when walking that it was making her cough and gag. We became so concerned that we decided we'd have to use a harness instead of attaching the lead to her collar.

I just had a look at a site about using homeopathy to treat or prevent kennel cough and it had a piece of information that would have made us realise earlier hat was wrong with Penny. It said that you can test for this disease by pressing lightly on the dog's throat just under the jaw and above the collar. If she has kennel cough she will cough immediately.

So that explained the mystery of Penny pulling. She's not actually pulling hard after all, it's probably just that the lightest tug on the collar has been making her cough and gag.

Another extra snippet of information I gleaned tonight is that owners often report that their dog seems to have something stuck in the throat. I read this at the Mar Vista Animal Medical Center. We had been worrying for a few days previously whether Penny had something stuck in her throat, or whether she had scratched her throat.

So, all in all, she sure has the classic symptoms of kennel cough! We'll be making sure she eats well, drinks well and rests over the next few days.

8 comments:

Molly the Airedale said...

Hi Penny,
We just noticed you commenting on Noah's bloggie and we wanted to come say hi! You're very cute! We hope you get over your kennel cough and feel better soon!

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

Anonymous said...

Hi Penny, I'm sorry to hear about your cough. I know with the good care your mom gives you you will be well in no time. The place mom found with the bland diet recipe is here:
http://epah.net/dogs/bland.html

Mom kind of made her own recipe up using info from other places and this one as the basis for amounts. She boiled her own chicken for the broth and froze it (the chicken & broth in individual pkgs.) I got some of the chicken cut up and added in the last few days.

Noah the Airedale said...

Glad to hear she is feeling better. I guess if something was stuck in her throat she would be in distress rather than coughing.
We used to know a black lab that would pull so hard on its lead he would blank out for a few seconds. It never learned not to pull.

Hugs and tail wags
Noah
ps. the waggy tail in my third video clip belongs to Tess lol. She has white paws too.

Amber-Mae said...

Hey Parlance & Penny! Yes, it's true. Even after completing all our vaccinations doesn't matter if it's the cheaper vaccine or the 7 in 1 vaccine or something like that, we still can get kennel cough. There's this lady who rescues dogs who also does boarding. Few of mah friends have already boarded at her place & have came back with flu & cough. One of them had kennel cough but a mild one. Within a week or two, they cured. That easily...

Butt wiggles,
Solid Gold Dancer

parlance said...

Maggie and Mitch, thanks for the good wishes. I had a look at your blog and I was amazed at the slideshow of the barn raising.

parlance said...

Rusty, thanks for the recipe.

parlance said...

Noah, Tess must be nearly as charming s you are, then, with her gorgeous wagging tail.
I guess you're right about how uncomfortable she would have been if she had something in her throat. We're champion worriers here and all to aware of how much we don't know. But even we had decided that she didn't actually have anything in her throat.

parlance said...

Amber-Mae, it's been a week or two now, and Penny does in fact seem to be a lot better.