orange dog vomit

There are a few photos of dog vomit in this blog, so don't read on if you think it will upset you. However, I'm posting it because when Penny threw up in the park yesterday, we couldn't find good information on the internet, and I hope this post will be helpful to others.

It seemed like a good idea to have a walk before breakfast yesterday, so when we set out, Penny had an empty stomach. That may have something to do with what happened.

As we walked, I took a photo of the lovely, typical wattle. All three of us were happy. In retrospect, examining this photo, I'm wondering what Penny was doing. Eating something? Grazing on grass?

Anyway, a few minutes later, she threw up a handful of grass in yellow froth, as she occasionally does. It was yellow, which is not really clear in the following photo.

We weren't too concerned, because it was likely Penny was just using the grass to settle a bit of a tummy upset.

But a few paces further on, she threw up orange froth, with a small blob of blood in it.

She seemed fine, but we slowed  down the pace of the walk and made our way back to the car.

Penny was her usual self as far as we could see, during the rest of the day, but we fed her only tiny meals of boiled rice and chicken - we gave her a little handful about four times over the course of the day.

This morning, however, we began to think we should get her checked out at the vet. So off we went.
He believes Penny might have ruptured a little blood vessel in her stomach when she vomited the first time and that's why she threw up the orange froth.

We're continuing the rice and chicken diet, but today we have introduced some of her normal treats (for instance, when I was bathing her this afternoon).

She seems fine. Time will tell, of course. It's reassuring to have visited  our vet, though.

And when I look at what Penny was doing while we were admiring the beautiful yellow wattle, I think she was already eating grass.

dogs and aloe vera

After my recent post about using aloe vera on Penny's feet, Lassiter Chase's mum posted a comment saying she was glad to read that licking off aloe vera won't hurt a dog.

I started to worry that I hadn't done enough research for my last post. I did read that aloe vera is safe, and I'm trying it on Penny's feet, but I only looked at the one site I mentioned. So I've looked around further and this is what I've found:

eHow says the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals lists it as a poison, if eaten. The article concludes that it could be used on coat and skin, but with care.

This is the ASPCA page on aloe vera.

Marvista Vet says:

ALOE VERA GEL - If possible, obtain 100% aloe vera gel from a health food store. Products "containing aloe" are much more available but are generally not as effective and not meant to be licked away by a pet. Aloe vera gel comes from the aloe vera succulent and contains enzymes which break down inflammatory proteins and enhance healing. Pure aloe vera gel is not harmful for pets who want to lick it off.

WebMD gives an overview of the aloe vera in relation to humans and points out the the middle of the leaf is a gel and that just under the skin there is latex. It continues:

But taking aloe latex by mouth is likely unsafe, especially at high doses. There is some concern that some of the chemicals found in aloe latex might cause cancer. Additionally, aloe latex is hard on the kidneys and could lead to serious kidney disease and even death.

However, the aloe vera latex that is mentioned is taken by humans as a laxative, so I presume they would be eating larger amounts than Penny would get by licking at her paw.
The article conludes with an overview of how aloe vera is thought to work.

The useful parts of aloe are the gel and latex. The gel is obtained from the cells in the center of the leaf; and the latex is obtained from the cells just beneath the leaf skin.

Aloe gel might cause changes in the skin that might help diseases like psoriasis.

Aloe seems to be able to speed wound healing by improving blood circulation through the area and preventing cell death around a wound.

It also appears that aloe gel has properties that are harmful to certain types of bacteria and fungi.

Aloe latex contains chemicals that work as a laxative.

Burke's Backyard says:

Cuts and abrasions - aloe vera is a useful, naturally occurring antiseptic derived from the succulent Aloe vera. It can be safely applied to a pet to help the healing of minor cuts or abrasions. Any thing major, particularly a burn or severe laceration, should be examined by a vet.

Dogs Life has some sensible advice:

“Allergies to natural substances are still possible, and dogs can have series reactions, especially if they are they are allergic types,” Fougère warns. “Before using a natural remedy, it’s always a good idea to do a patch test. This means applying a very small dab to a less hairy part of the body (like the groin area), then waiting 24 hours to see if there is a reaction. If there is, you’ll need to avoid that substance.”

the value of keeping a doggy diary

Penny's been eating grass. She has always used grass to settle her stomach, or to settle her gut, and it usually comes out the other end, all neatly folded and looking like it has passed through her digestive system untouched.

I've posted about it previously.

But this time she's had us worried, so much so that we went to the vet. She's been rushing outside not long after her meals, tearing at the grass like a sheep, and it's been coming through inside her faeces, so that at first we didn't realise it was there. (Now you know that we truly love her - who else would be pulling poo to pieces to see what's in it?) And then she vomited up a heap of grass.

So, to the vet...

He checked her thoroughly, asked if she's been well otherwise. Yes, she has. He listened to her gut for long enough that I started to get worried, and said it was noisier than usual. And I learned a new word when I read his notes - ascultation.

I mentioned to the vet that the first time we saw her rush outside, she had just been out in the garden chewing a three-day-old lamb shank she'd previously buried, and he said some dogs react badly to lamb. He then made sure her worming is up to date and suggested we monitor her for another couple of weeks, at the same time increasing the amount of roughage she gets.

I didn't think much of it until I came home and looked at the diary we keep:
Tuesday 24th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - lamb, snacked on dug-up lamb shank;
Wednesday 25th January: breakfast - lamb and tripe canned food, dinner - not recorded;
Thursday 26th January: breakfast - lamb,dinner - Royal Canin Hypoallergenic dry food (rarely fed but we had some left over);
Friday 27th January: breakfast - beef, dinner - lamb;
Saturday 28th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - lamb;
Sunday 29th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - lamb kidneys;
Monday 30th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - canned lamb and tripe;
Tuesday 1st February: breakfast - lamb kidneys, dinner beef and canned lamb and tripe.

I said to a friend that we might not have twigged about how much lamb we were feeding if we didn't keep a diary, and she said, "What about plain old memory?"

Well, I must admit we feed such a variety usually that I wouldn't be able to recall exactly what Penny's had over the last week. By the way, there have been other ingredients to her meals, such as raw or cooked vegetables, Vets All Natural Complete Mix, Glyde, Melrose Omega-3 oil and healthy treats.

But lamb has accidentally dominated. And why?
Because it was on special in the supermarket and I love a bargain.
Because I happened to buy lamb as the canned food we sometimes feed (high quality ZiwiPeak, by the way).
Because I thought it would be good to mix in some organ meat and didn't stop to think that it was also lamb.

Once we became aware of this, we stopped the lamb, and she has only chewed on a little bit of grass once, that we know of. She's having more roughage than usual, as per the vet's suggestion (cold cooked potato and pumpkin, which she loves), and some rice and cooked chicken for the next couple of days.

Now the question is, should we let her have lamb in future?

My thought is that we overfed one food type, not that lamb per se is the problem. But we'll wait for a few weeks before reintroducing it.

However, I did come across this interesting snippet at K9Web in looking for information for this post:

Dogs are not allergic to a dog food per se, rather they react to one or more of the ingredients in the food. Some of the most common culprits are beef, pork, chicken, milk, whey, eggs, fish, corn, soy, wheat and preservatives. Many animals are now developing allergies to lamb as well. This was once thought to be very hypo-allergenic, but the more it is used, the more sensitivities are springing up.

It's been a lesson for us.

And I'm glad we keep a diary, even though our friends think we're weirdly obsessive.

the dangers of commercial pet foods in Australia

When Penny was eating a commercial dry food as part of a hypo-allergenic diet to deal with skin issues, I was unhappy, because I prefer not to feed her that kind of food. I can't see that a monotonous diet of one product could possible be healthy. I was relieved when we went to a skin specialist who told us to discontinue the diet.

Recently there has been a report in a newspaper in Queensland, raising serious doubts about the levels of sulphur dioxide in some commercial pet meat products. I sometimes buy these sorts of products, but avoid the ones where there is an extremely long use-by date, because I'm wary of the effects of preservatives on Penny's health.

We do buy 4Legs products, because they say they don't use any preservatives. It was a 4Legs email that sent me the link to the newspaper article, so I guess they are wanting to reassure pet owners that their product is not involved in this problem. On their site they have this to say about pets fed exclusively on pet mince, pet meat or food rolls.

The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) has warned that pets fed exclusively with pet mince, pet meat or food rolls that are high in preservatives may suffer fatal health problems. This is because these products often contain high levels of sulphur dioxide. Known as Preservative 220 – 228, sulphur can inactivate the vitamin thiamine (Vitamin B1), which is vital for brain development. Degeneration of brain function can quickly lead to paralysis, seizures and death.

In one way this is scary stuff, but on the other hand I don't think anyone would feed their dog exclusively on these products. I think it's more likely that an owner might choose one dry food product - which I think is equally questionable, as I said at the start of this post.

is roundup - glyphosate - safe to use around dogs?

A recent article in Organic Gardener magazine, about glyphosate (Roundup), has me wondering about this herbicide in terms of its danger to dogs.

I have two concerns (apart from my general concern about the environment). First, I believe this is the herbicide that is used in Darebin Parklands, where we walk frequently.

Secondly, we have a back lane behind our house, one that is great for a short off-lead walk and also provides a private place to chase tennis balls. I asked our local council why a spray is used there and was told it's too expensive to mow it more than four times each year, so herbicides are used to keep the weeds down.

I've noticed that some weeds spring up immediately after the spraying in the lane and asked whether they might be Roundup-resistant, but the council official was non-committal about that.

However... now that I've read this article in Organic Gardener I see that there are now 16 weeds with confirmed resistance to this herbicide.

By the way, to clear up any confusion about what herbicide I'm talking about, here's a quote from the article:

Glyphosate is sometimes referred to by the original trade name Roundup, which was first marketed by Monsanto in 1974, and the two names are often used interchangeably.

I don't like to use this product in my own garden, so it bothers me that Penny is likely to be exposed to it when we're out walking. There's a lot of work being done to regenerate indigenous plants in Darebin Parklands, and glyphosate is considered to be an essential tool in fighting introduced weeds.

The article says,

While bush regenerators maintain they couldn't do their work without it, emerging research may yet see glyphosate join the long list of pesticides that were once thought to be safe, but turn out to be harmful.

The author says we tend to trust the story that glyphosate is relatively safe, but last year France's Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of Roundup, and many Canadian municipalities restrict the use of any [pesticides] herbicides for cosmetic purposes such as lawns and driveways, because of health concerns.

Humans can wear gloves and face masks when they use it, and cover all exposed skin. But if my dog walks through a recently sprayed area, she will place her bare paws on it, she will roll in it, she might chew a few blades of grass, she might drink from a puddle that is polluted with runoff.

And not just recently sprayed areas, either - here are a couple more quotes:

While regulators agree glyphosate has a relatively low acute (short-term) toxicity compared with other herbicides, recent research indicating possible long-term health effect is causing controversy...

Glyphosate is relatively persistent in soil, especially in cold climates, where residues have been found up to three years after use. In warmer climates it stays in the soil for between four and 180 days.

Penny likes to dig, sometimes.

yet more about kennel cough in dogs

Penny seems to feel a bit better today from her current bout of kennel cough, well enough to do her door-guarding duty, but her barking is not up to scratch, because she has to pause to cough and sneeze.



I've been told to get her out in warm sunshine, if possible, but wouldn't you know it, after months of unseasonably dry and warm weather we've been gifted with proper wet, cold autumn weather. Wait a minute. The sun just came out...



Okay, back inside after ten minutes in a the sun. An informative site at Lowchensaustralia says that if the infection runs a normal, uncomplicated course, there's no need for antitbiotics. (That's what the vet at the animal clinic told me the other night.) A couple of points that surprised me, however, were that it is actually possible for this bronchitis-related disease to pass to humans, and that dogs can shed the virus, ie pass it on, for up to fourteen weeks.

The vet who treated Penny at the emergency clinic said an intranasal spray is a more effective preventative than the annual vaccination, but the site at Lowchensaustralia says:

This vaccine is not without its problems. It is a very effective vaccine, but it must be used carefully and is generally only recommended for dogs that are at high risk. If your dog is not shown, boarded, or comes into contact with stray dogs, your dog is considered low risk.

Hmm... Penny spends lots of time in contact with other dogs, through canine freestyle, flyball and pet dog training with Cindy.

However, when I rang my own vet, he said he prefers the vaccination, as the nasal spray is not necessarily that much more effective as to warrant the trouble in administering it to dogs who hate having something sprayed up their nose.

regurgitation and vomiting in dogs

Honey the Great Dane has been vomiting also, and Hsin-Yi, her human, has written all about it, including some interesting links.

Of course, Hsin-Yi worried that Honey might be suffering bloat, that condition that terrifies us humans, but thankfully, Honey seems well now.

I'm still thinking about the meaning of dog vomiting, because this morning - Monday - Penny vomited up the grass that she ate Friday evening. It seems a long time to have been inside her.

Here are the links that Hsin-Yi included. I've had a look at them and I think they are helpful.

Wellvet.com

and

Helium.

At Natural Dog Health Remedies I read

If your dog often vomits in the morning or before eating and the expelled substance is a clear yellow or brownish fluid, it may mean that she has an upset stomach caused by excessive stomach acids. Feeding your dog more frequent meals in smaller portions may solve the problem.

I thought an article at peteducation.com had very comprehensive information.

Vetbase.co.uk has an extremely comprehensive article, also. I was interested to read

When an animal vomits the gastric contents and perhaps some contents of the first part of the small intestine are brought up and ejected forcefully through the mouth.

I hadn't realised that vomiting could bring up material from so far down the digestive tract.

more information on the KraMar recall of chicken treats

Today I received an email from the Darebin Dogs group about the recall of the KraMar treats suspected of poisoning small dogs. (Darebin Dogs is an email group for people who walk with their dogs in Darebin Parklands. If you are a local dog owner you can contact them at darebindogs@hotmail.com.)

It contained a link that advises people who've fed these treats- at any time in the past fifteen months - to get the dog's urine tested, because the dog could have kidney damage without showing any symptoms. Scary stuff!

Being a champion worrier I was planning to go to the vet tomorrow, but then I looked at the image on the KraMar site and realised, to my great relief, that I had been using KraMar Chicken Breast Bites and the product recall is for Chicken Breast Strips. Whew!

The Australian Veterinary Association is advising owners not to panic. But it's hard not to, when our beloved companions are endangered in ways that we can't foresee or prevent. I just don't trust the big dog-food companies any more. I'm glad that most of Penny's food is raw human-grade meat from a reliable butcher.

deciding how much exercise our dogs need

Penny has just been out with us to the local shops for a short walk. We mostly stuck to the shade as it's a warm - but thankfully not hot - day. We even stretched our stiff middle-aged bodies to bend down and check how hot the pavement was for her paws. Not too hot, I'm pleased to say.

Now the question arises: how guilty should we feel that she probably won't get another, longer walk today? It's always a temptation to say, as long as she gets 'off the property' for some stimulation, that's enough. We often have to weigh her need for exercise against our need to lie around doing nothing in particular. Especially during the summer holidays!

Well, I've just read an informative article about dogs' exercise needs, on a Canadian site called Dog Blog. Some points that struck me were:

• having a large backyard is no reason to cop-out on walks, because most dogs won't exercise themselves - being a pack animal, they will wait for the leader to signal that it's time to go out hunting;


• running around chasing a ball in the backyard is not a sufficient cardio workout;


• the daily walk is a time for your dog to practise attending to you and reading your verbal or physical commands;


• if you have exercised your dog well, she should want to curl up and have a rest when you get home.

Hmm...that resting thing doesn't really seem to apply to Penny, even when we've been out for two hours...

great pet health blogs

Dolittler (aka vet Dr. Patricia Khuly), who has a great blog, has compiled her own list of favorite pet health blogs. Definitely worth a visit!

more on the recall of KraMar dog treats

Here is a link to the KraMar media release on the recall.

And here is the text of an email that is circulating. I notice that it seems to be by Miles Kemp, author of the article I linked to in my previous post, but the text seems to be somewhat different. I think it's worth posting here for the extra information it contains.

poisoned meat is causing kidney damage in small dogs


By Miles Kemp

The Advertiser

December 09, 2008


Poisoned meat

Alert ... hundreds of small dogs have been affected by poisoned meat as
experts try to track down its source.

* Hundreds of dogs hit in poison scare
* Experts try to track down source
* Meat from China suspected

UNIVERSITY experts are urgently trying to track down the source of a deadly
poison which has struck hundreds of small dogs, with pet food meat from
China the suspected cause.

The Australian Veterinary Association has issued a national warning to all
vets to report any serious kidney damage in small dogs in the past month.

"We have only become aware of this in the last three or four weeks, and we
need to make people aware there are some clear indications there is a
problem out there," AVA national president Mark Lawrie told The Advertiser
yesterday.

Mr Lawrie said the AVA had discussed the cases with a prominent pet-food
supplier suspected to be the source of the poison, which the AVA would not
name for legal reasons. Vets and small-dog owners have been told to look out
for warning signs:

INCREASED thirst and urination.

Related Coverage,

REDUCED appetite and lethargy.

VOMITING and weakness.

University of Sydney researchers have issued a national alert over the
kidney-destroying poison - but after a legal threat from the company, have
been banned by the university from making any public comment.

The AVA had also warned vets - in a national alert to all members to be
aware of the problem - against making comments to the media about the case.

One university researcher, who would not be named, said there was enough
evidence to recall the product but the safety message had been hampered by
threats from the company.

"We have not been able to call for cases and an open call to vets for cases
has just been made and we are aware of dozens of cases and suspect there are
hundreds," he said. "What is important is that the meat is sourced in China
and I think pet owners can trust the product if all the ingredients are
sourced in Australia."

The researcher said owners should be concerned about any breed but
especially dogs the size of a small terrier.

Studies of dead dogs are also being carried out to identify the cause, with
one brand of meat suspected of causing symptoms.

Vets have been urged to contact the University of Sydney Faculty of
Veterinary Science via email A.Arteaga@usyd.edu.au if they have suspected
cases of the poisoning.

KraMar chicken treats recalled - made in China

On the ABC news tonight there was a report that KraMar dried chicken treats are being recalled because of a suspicion that they are poisoning dogs.There is also a report on the AdelaideNow site.
Dogs who are affected may be drinking and urinating a lot, be unusually lethargic or vomiting.

I'm glad now that I'm a worrier. A couple of months ago I stopped feeding these great-looking treats because I like to read the fine print on things and I noticed they are made in China. Nowadays I don't feed anything to Penny unless I know all ingredients were sourced in Australia or New Zealand or unless the packet specifies no ingredients come from China.

I actually have a packet of these KraMar treats in the cupboard. I didn't want to feed them to her, but the treats appeared so healthy that it seemed a pity to throw them out.

Now I will throw them out!

dogs are in danger if they eat Xylitol sugar substitute

Reading Dolittler's blog today I was surprised to learn the extent of the danger the sugar-substitute Xylitol presents to dogs.

Since I read her previous posts on the danger of this product I've been been warning my friends not to feed anything with artificial sweeteners - but I didn't realise that Xylitol is used now in Rescue Remedy and in some multivitamins.

Dolittler (a practising vet in the US) says that more dogs are poisoned by TicTacs than by any other product, partly because they have such a high level of Xylitol and partly because they are so ubiquitous.

An online article by Sherrill Sellman says that the Finns rediscovered Xylitol during a sugar shortage in World War Two, making it from birch bark. It had been first manufactured in 1891 by a German chemist.

Snopes.com has an account of a nearly fatal accidnet where a dog ate a couple of pieces of chewing gum.

I guess the message is, don't feed your dog anything produced for humans, unless you research the ingredients first.

dogs learning to 'leave it' or 'give' it to their humans

Our neighbours might have wondered what was going on in our backyard tonight, because they probably heard my increasingly desperate commands to Penny to 'leave' a delicious tidbit she had found, or to 'give' it to me.

I got so worried I shouted for someone in the house to come and help me wrench it from Penny's mouth. But no-one heard - a lesson that our houses are so soundproof that shouts for help might not be heard. Scary thought.

She was recently on a course of antibiotics for a week because the vet thought she had a bowel inflammation. It was only after I came home from that vet appointment that I had a horrible thought, too scary to even write about here. I remembered that in mid-August, I had lost a nylon stocking whose toe was stuffed with cabana, cheese and other smelly treats.

Why would I have such a strange thing? It was used to lay a great-smelling track for Penny to follow.

Why would I forget where I had put an object so dangerously tempting to a dog? I don't know.

I've had a niggling worry for weeks as to whether she had found it and eaten it. My friends must have got tired of me asking them whether they think a dog would eat something like that; whether it would go through her digestive system; whether it would show up on an x-ray; whether I should ask the vet; whether she would be still pooing if she had a nylon stocking in her gut.

You get the picture? I've been driving everyone crazy by mentioning it every time I start to worry.

Well, tonight I learned the answer: yes, a dog WOULD eat it if she happened to find it, even if it were so old that it had turned into a disgusting slimy mass.




Yes, she would absolutely refuse to give it back and would try to swallow it as quickly as possible if she thought her human was trying to steal it.

Yes, the stocking would start to tear apart if the human tried to pull it back out of her dog's oesophagus.

When I look at the photo and see how far into her mouth the stocking had gone - you can tell the part that is damp - I thank heaven that some intuition made me leave my dinner and go outside to investigate what she was doing outside at a time when she's usually keeping an eye on her humans while they eat.

Top of my to-do list is to be shown once again how to force a dog's jaw open. The vet did show me but in the dark and in the stress of the moment I couldn't do it.

One great result of tonight's fright is that now I can stop worrying about where the stocking is. It's in the rubbish bin and out in the street for collection.

lumps, bowels and doggy illnesses

Penny's been keeping us on our toes lately. She had her annual vaccinations last week, one of which which should protect her from distemper, infectious hepatitus and parvovirus; the other from bordetella brontiseptica and canine parainfluenza.

Well, I think that's what they were - the teensy tiny stickers on her health record are hard to read, even with my glasses on!

That evening she threw up five times. I rang the local animal hospital and the vet said to keep an eye on her and gave me the phone number of a local all-night clinic. However, she slept through the night okay.

We didn't, though.

In the morning my own vet examined her and he thought she was more likely to have vomited because she had a bowel inflammation. (She had been having jelly-like material in her poos on and off over the last few weeks.)

He put her on antibiotics for a week, which are nearly finished now.

It's hard to know what to do for the best for our beloved animals. There are lots of internet sites with scary stories of pets' reactions to vaccinations, and I did check out lots of such sites when I posted last year about the concern that we over-vaccinate in Australia.

I thought Dog Owners' Guide seemed to have a reasonable overview of the question. Basically they referred to vomiting as a severe reaction, but said we should still have the vaccinations with the proviso that the dog might need to take antihistamines or the leptospirosis part could be omitted.

They discuss (but not in detail) recent research that suggests we should vaccinate less frequently.

As I write this, Penny is frantically licking her paws. She tends to have a problem with her paws, so it's not a new issue, but I feel sure she's doing it more these last couple of days. So I'm interested in a site that suggests paw licking can be a reaction to vaccinations.

And to top off our worries, when I got home from the vet after the vaccination, I noticed Penny had another lump - this time on the top of her head. It's not long since she had one removed from her chest.

The vet said it would be safer to remove it, but not to worry about rushing into it. I'm fairly sure it is getting smaller every day. At first it was as big as a pea, but I think it's only pin-head size now. Here's hoping!

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.

kennel cough and vomiting - it's been a dog's life this week

Penny has been coughing recently. Because she’s our first dog, we are learning as we go and it wasn’t until Jabari’s mum commented that it sounded like kennel cough that we even considered this disease. Penny’s never been to a kennel and in my naivety I thought you couldn’t get it anywhere else. (The power of names to influence our thinking!) Also, her vaccinations are up-to-date and I believed they included kennel cough. We wanted to take her to the vet but the cough is seemingly random and occasional, so we thought there wouldn’t be anything for the vet to observe. (As you can see, we are definitely beginners at dog ownership!)

I rang the vet and the nurse told me that even if dogs are vaccinated against this disease, they can still get it; however, it should be a milder form. I decided to have a look around the Net to see what I could find out. One of the most interesting pieces of information was that there are video clips of dogs with kennel cough on YouTube. When we listened to this one, we thought it sounded similar to Penny’s cough.

Next I thought I would visit the Merck Veterinary Manual. It said:

Spasms of coughing are the outstanding sign. These are most severe after rest or a change of environment or at the beginning of exercise.

This is exactly the situation in which Jabari’s mum noticed Penny coughing. It was as Penny rushed from the car to join Jabari in the park. We’ve also noticed that she coughs when she gets up after resting on her mat.
The Manual also said:

The acute stage of bronchitis passes in 2-3 days; the cough, however, may persist for 2-3 wk.

I also found some relevant information at a site called all doctors. They said the name kennel cough is misleading as it can be caught at any gathering of dogs. It’s caused by a combination of a bacterium and a virus. Dogs with this disease often finish their coughing with gagging or retching and produce frothy phlegm. It can persist for several weeks and sneezing is common.

ThePetCenter.com says dogs will usually recover from this disease without treatment but a visit to the vet is recommended because a cough might be a symptom of another disease entirely. The cough sounds as if the dog needs to "clear its throat" and will be triggered by any extra activity or exercise. In many dogs the general state of health and alertness will be unaffected, and there might be no rise in temperature, or loss of appetite. The symptoms may last from 7 to 21 days but it’s rarely life threatening. It goes on to say that sometimes cough suppressants and occasionally antibiotics are prescribed.


It’s been a ‘medical’ week for Penny. Unfortunately, she became quite sick on Tuesday after I accidentally fed her treats that were too old. (I’ve learned a lesson!!) We rushed to the vet and he gave her a painkilling injection for her sore stomach and a penicillin injection in case of infection.

We’re going to wait a couple of days and see how she does before we go back to the vet. Perhaps the penicillin will help her with the cough. Today when we walked along our local creek she was full of energy and fun but she still occasionally coughed or sneezed.

canine fitness routine for the city dwelling dog

Penny and I went for a walk in Darebin Parklands this evening and we both took the opportunity to improve our level of fitness (me by strolling around and her by racing all over the place, chasing balls and swimming in the creek). I think we’re incredibly lucky to have an open area at the bottom of our street where she is allowed to walk off-lead. I’m sure that if she had to toddle around the streets on a leash at my middle-aged pace, she’d be overweight and unfit.

We city dwellers have to work hard to find opportunities to keep our dogs fit. I’ve just read an article in the magazine ‘Dog World’ about finding places in a city to exercise a dog. The author, Liz Palika, is a dog-trainer, behavioural consultant and AKC CGC evaluator. She says that one of the advantages of living in a city is that the dog gets plenty of chances to experience different surfaces, such as grass, asphalt, sand and dirt – this will increase all-round confidence when faced with new experiences.

There’s also a photo of a dog in what seems to be a small backyard, standing up on its back legs to get a treat. The caption under the picture says that when a dog goes from a sit to a stand the rear legs and core muscles are exercised. Cindy, the teacher at K9 Kompany in Lilydale, where Penny and I go each week, also emphasises the usefulness of stretches for maintaining a dog’s health. It sounds rather like ‘Pilates for Dogs’, now that I think of it. This is the first time I’ve heard the expression ‘core muscles’ used for a dog, though I’m familiar with it in my own exercise classes.

The article also mentions an exercise routine that Cindy uses at the start of many classes. It’s ‘sit-ups’, doggy-style. Penny goes from a sit to a drop and up again. The writer of the article says that the idea is to get some speed on this so that the dog does lots of push-ups in a very short time. Hmmm… I’m pretty sure Penny’s ancestry involves lounging around in a Tibetan monastery looking to see if anyone is coming up the valley. She’s not easy to convince that she needs to do exercises quickly. Have to think about that one…

However, the exercise that sounds like fun is the one that Christine Zink, author of a book on dog fitness called ‘The Agility Advantage’, recommends. The dog gets into a beg position and then rises onto the back legs without putting the front legs down. It sounds as if it would be great for Penny because I sometimes think she is not using her rear legs strongly when she runs. We've practised it in the past with her rising up once to get a treat but haven't tried it as an repeated exercise.


The article is from the June 2008 edition of Dog World, volume 93, issue 6, and it’s on pages 36-40. At the DogWorld site there are five great tips for increasing a city dog’s fitness and general agility.