Coughing and gagging dog.

[foxielady]

Hi there

My dog visited the vet about 6 months ago and was put on antibiotics for a constant cough. He is a little fox terior and is 17 years old. He now is gagging when he coughs and really if he has a heart condition treatment at his age might not be an option:

[hazelrunpack]

Hi, foxielady! Welcome to the board!

What did your vet say about the new gagging? Depending on what the problem turns out to be, not all treatments are harsh. It might be something that can be fairly easily managed with meds.

[MaxaLisa]

Yes, they have great meds for heart conditions now.

[Goldfields]

And if his cough happened to be caused by allergies , some cortisone should give him relief. Silk has a shocking cough, with gagging, if she isn't on Prednil. She's a 13 year old Sheltie, foxielady. I figure you do what you can to give them quality of life ahead of quantity when they get old. I've had several dogs on heart med's too, no hassles.

[Rgeurts]

We also had the same issue with our boy, Thorin. He had a cough and was gagging alot for a few months. The vets always said the same thing... his trachea was irritated, or maybe his collar caused some irritation, but no one ever seemed worried. I came home one day and found a pile of mucous on the floor, so made another vet appt. We took him in and I insisted on x-rays. He had a mass in the bottom lobe of his left lung. I won't go in to all the details, and I'm not trying to scare you by any means, but maybe x-rays are in order. Hopefully it is just environmental, or allergies. But it could be something more serious. Thorin had surgery to remove the lung tumor, a round of chemo, another surgery to remove 3 more tumors from his back and shoulder area, then another round of chemo. He recovered from the surgeries and had no side effects from the chemo... and he was 12 yrs old, which is old for a Malamute. The surgeries/treatment gave us another year with our sweet baby boy.

I hope yours is not as serious. Good luck

[Choochi]

Why was he put on antibiotics? Did you go back to see the vet when the course was done and there was no difference in the coughing? What did they say.