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Coughing

Klondike

Our 7 year old mix breed dog has been coughing since November. We've had him on prednisone and 2 different kinds of antibiotics with no luck in clearing it up. He did seem to be getting over it when we were coming back home from Indiana from the holidays.
Took him into the vet yesterday and they did blood work on him which showed he had a very high white blood cell count. They did more x-rays and he's got some blurry white areas around his lungs. Left side is worse than the right. Nothing was wrong with his stomach. His x-rays have changed since the first set was ran. They did say his liver was a little large mostly due to the prednisone. They have no idea what to suggest. Other than retesting his blood and doing another transtacheal wash, which we already did with no answers. Can you give us some other suggestions on which route to go? The only things that have changed in our house around November is we got a new air cont/furnace, an air purifier and switched his dog food to Hills Hypo-Allergen.

Thank you

Symptoms: Coughing

• Experienced Advisor Deepa Gopinath says:

  February 27th, 2008 at 03:42 PM

  Hi there. It sounds like your vets have done a pretty decent work-up but if they are not sure where to go from there, it may be worthwhile requesting a referral to a specialist.  I can't comment without seeing the dog and the x-rays but differentials for coughing in his case would include heart disease, lungworm, allergic bronchitis pneumonia and other lung diseases such as cancer.  Another test that your vets may be able to do is a bronchoscopy (using a camera to look into the trachea) and a bronchial wash which can be examined.  This requires a general anaesthetic, for which there may be an increased risk in his case.  In the case of lungworm, a 5 day course of Panacur may help. As you probably know, long-term steroids can have adverse effects so the sooner you get to the underlying problem, the better! Hope that helps and good luck!!

  Panacur and other pet products available at discount prices here

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• User says:

  February 27th, 2008 at 04:59 PM

  Thank you for your advice. We are waiting on some blood work that should be back either today or tomorrow. Our Vet has already recommended seeing an internal medicine dr in our area who can do other tests that they can not. She also mentioned taking him out of our house for 2 weeks to see if the coughing stops and do another x-ray. Didn't know if something in our house was causing the coughing. When he was at their office on Monday getting groomed and having blood work and x-rays done she said he did not cough the whole day and he did not cough when I brought him home but Tuesday he started the hacking again. He has not lost his appetite or the coughing has not slowed him down. He's still very active.

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