We got Muddy off the Robitussin right away because the sedating effects were just too powerful. I picked up a prescription for Torbutrol 5mg and he gets a half tab in the morning and another at night. It worked so well for the first 3-4 days but he has started coughing again. It is not as much as when he is not on any meds but he is still coughing. I left a message with my vet but haven't heard back from her yet.
From what I understood, we were trying to get him to stop coughing for a long enough time so that the inflammation in his trachea/throat area would go down. Each time he coughs, it is supposed to be making the inflammtion worse and the inflammation is making him cough.
I don't know if the fact that he has started coughing again means that his dose needs to be increased or if he has something else causing the cough, like a foreign body that the xray didn't pick up.
The other thing is that my dog Finnigan coughed last night in exactly the same way Muddy has been. It was only the one time and he might have just had some food lodged the wrong way, he eats quickly. But now I'm wondering if it is something that is contagious.
They are never in contact with other dogs (because Muddy is not good with other dogs, he's a bit aggressive) and we walk them everyday but around our property, not in public where they might come across other dogs. We have some acreage so they have lots of room to run.
I do think the wolves come around at night and walk through our property and I don't know if there is something our dogs could catch from them?
There is one pack that frequents our area and I just found out they killed another dog about a block away from where we live. My neighbour says they travel through his property and ours on a regular basis at night but I have never seen them. Our dogs sleep inside with us so they haven't had direct contact with them.
But I don't think it is a contagious thing he's dealing with because the xrays showed a clear view of a collapsing trachea with inflammation of the tracheal sac. The vet said an irritant of somesort could have started it.
I'm waiting to hear back from the vet if I should increase his meds or change them.
I gave my vet the information about the Gabapentin that I received in this post (thank you guys for that!!) and she was really interested in it. She called in a prescription for a month's supply. I picked them up but don't want to start Muddy on them until I get him through this coughing/hacking problem. It makes him so uncomfortable.
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