PetFriendly
November 18th, 2005, 03:43 PM
I have a 10 month old Pomeranian / Shih tzu mutt who has a slight bit of a cough when he gets excited or winded from bursts of running around. The vet said it was a trachea problem (its not collapsed, just less strong than it probably should be, but also not abnormally so for a small dog), probably from running out to the end of his leash and applying too much pressure on his neck (though I noticed my room-mate has been letting him ‘pull’ her when she takes him outside but we’re working on that too).
He wears a ¾” flat nylon collar because the vet said that a wider collar is better at distributing the pressure. And we work daily on leash manners, which have greatly improved, and making him aware of how long the leash is so he doesn’t run to the end of it. His leash is the same ¾” nylon and is 6’ long. He also has a step-in harness that I usually use if we’re going somewhere where I won’t be able to watch him every second (to prevent the running to the end of the leash and choking himself)
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop this from getting worse other than what I’m already doing? Its kind of sad when he starts coughing like a smoker every time someone comes to visit or one of his dog friends stop at the fence to say hi.
He wears a ¾” flat nylon collar because the vet said that a wider collar is better at distributing the pressure. And we work daily on leash manners, which have greatly improved, and making him aware of how long the leash is so he doesn’t run to the end of it. His leash is the same ¾” nylon and is 6’ long. He also has a step-in harness that I usually use if we’re going somewhere where I won’t be able to watch him every second (to prevent the running to the end of the leash and choking himself)
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop this from getting worse other than what I’m already doing? Its kind of sad when he starts coughing like a smoker every time someone comes to visit or one of his dog friends stop at the fence to say hi.