Question:
Nash is our 10 and a half year old chocolate lab who has been sick for a while now. She has had a cough for a couple of months. She was first prescribed Cephalexin (an antibiotic) with no help. We took her back and she is now on a different antibiotic, Apo Amoxi Clav. Unfortunately, she is still coughing away and the poor thing can get no rest. I have gone back and got bronchodilators for her, but there is still not much relief for her.

We've had bloodwork, chext x-rays, and a stool sample reviewed. The blood came back for the most part normal, the chest x-rays went off the the Ontario College of Vet. and it showed some congestion in the lungs, but nothing clinically significant for an older dog. No cancer or tumours. Her heart was good. The stool, though, came back with Hookworms. Yuck! So we added Interceptor to her drug regime to treat this.

She is a very active girl, even still, and actually seems better on her walks. Unfortunately, she is a lab, so she eats everything she can get her teeth into, and hence the hooks.

The vet mentioned that it is possible that the hookworms could have caused the cough, but just a remote chance. Has anyone ever heard of this? I can't find anything on line suggesting this.

The other thing suggested that sticks in my memory is chronic bronchitis. Has anybody had any experience with this? Did your dog get some relief from the cough with treatment?

Also, has anybody ever heard of a lawn treatment that is environmentally friendly to put on the lawn to get rid of the larvae for the hooks? I can't find anything on line, and I wouldn't want to use a harsh chemical near the kids and pets.

I'm back to the vet tomorrow, so I thought I'd look for any suggestions when talking to the vet. She is resting comfortably now, but come the night she is pretty distressed, so I can't leave things the way they are.

Sorry for such a long first post. I know you are all not vets, but figure more info is better than not enough.

Any help? Suggestions?

Thanks

Answer:
Yes, in answer to your question, hooks can cause coughs. Some of the hooks make their way up through the lungs as they mature, are coughed up, then swallowed back down to continue the cycle of infection. As they cyclically make their way through the lungs, they can cause irritation and a cough. (I'll wade through my papers and see if I can find the links that talk about this...but my filing system is abysmal....may take a while )

Also, as far as getting rid of hooks...it's awfully difficult. I've been told by vets that a multiple freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw over winter will clear the soil of them. But in our area, the raccoons continually reinfect the ground. Although our dogs are on preventive meds (Heartgard Plus, which is primarily for heartworm but also offers protection from hooks), the sheer number of hooks they come in contact with are overwhelming the meds. We finally just decided to worm them twice yearly--once in spring, once in fall. (We have 6 dogs, and it's actually cheaper to just worm them than to send in the fecals and have them all checked. If even one is positive, they treat them all anyway...)

I don't know of any surefire ways to get rid of the hooks, other than by somehow eliminating the contaminated soil. But since you don't know which patches have hooks and which are clean, you'd have to excavate and replace all the soil in your yard! If someone knows of some compound that will kill them, I hope they post--we could use something like that here, too!


Remember that if the soil is contaminated, you can get it, too. So don't walk outside barefoot.

Don't have any experience with chronic bronchitis, but maybe someone else will. Good luck! I hope you can figure out what's going on with Nash and get him some help!

Answer: