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wet coughing bringing up flem

charlie

My dog keeps coughing flem up? What could it be?

Symptoms: Coughing

• Master Advisor Matthew says:

  December 12th, 2007 at 12:54 PM

  Hi there, There are many different causes of coughing. THe most common one is probably kennel cough, which is more of a dry tickly cough. It is very contagious and spread via aerosol, by Charlie meeting another dog, say, in a park, who has kennel cough or is recovering from it. While it is distressing for dog and owner, it is self limiting and the dog makes a full recovery. Recovery is speeded up by antibiotics to prevent any secondary opportunistic bacterial infections. Since Charlie is 14 years old, I would want to rule out a heart problem first of all. Heart failure causes fluid to accumulate in the lungs, causing more of a gurgly cough. Very often this can appear like coughing up phlegm. A vet can usually tell if it is a heart problem by just listening to the heart with a stethoscope, often the presence of a murmur with the symptoms is enough to try the dog on heart tablets and see if there is improvement. Finally, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish vomiting from coughing. Vomiting when the stomach is empty, i.e. dry retching, can appear like coughing. THat of course has an entirely different set of possible causes.

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