Kennel cough, also known as infectious tracheobronchitis, comes in variations in dogs. Some stages are of course more serious than others, but antibiotics are normally given based on whether it is caused by viral or bacterial infections.
What is Kennel Cough?
You can think of kennel cough as the equivalent to the human respiratory infection. The dog actually does have a slight respiratory infection when she gets kennel cough. Symptoms may include sneezing, coughing, nasal discharge and in worse cases, respiratory disease or severe systemic disease. Viral pathogens are associated with respiratory issues, and they include parainfluenza, adenovirus, canine respiratory coronavirus and canine herpesvirus. Bacterial pathogens are associated with bordetella bronchiseptica, mycoplasma spp. and streptococcus zooepidemicus. Severe systemic disease is mostly caused by streptococcus zooepidemicus, which is when large numbers of animals are kept close to each other in zoo-like settings, where the virus passes back and forth.
The reason it is called kennel cough is because most of the pathogens listed here are unable to cause disease on their own. But with additional environmental factors such as stress and constant contact with other dogs, it is easy to become a harmful infection.
The cause of kennel cough cannot be decided based on a single dog's health symptoms. It can only be determined by the pattern seen in the health of all affected dogs that were kept within the same quarters. For instance, if several dogs were to show a mild distemper, which is only seen in dogs that were not vaccinated by 4 months of age, than it would be clear enough to assume that another dog showing similar symptoms has the same disease. Canine influenza is actually more dangerous because dogs can catch this at any age regardless if they have been vaccinated or not.
Treatment with Antibiotics
Neither of these, distemper of influenza, are vaccine treatable. It can subside symptoms, but it cannot prevent them or completely help them go away. There are plenty of antibiotics on the other hand that can clear up the kennel cough in as early as just a few days.
Dogs staying at home while diagnosed with kennel cough will most likely not need antibiotics because the infection is not surrounding them to keep them ill. If the dog were staying in the kennel or shelter, then antibiotics are a favorable choice. Doxycycline is most commonly given for the bortedella infection, and that strain of infection is resistant to cephalexin. You must be careful with doxycycline, however. If your dog has a previous allergy to it, or if they have an impaired liver or kidney function, stray away from doxycycline.
For other viral infections, you can treat your dog with cephalaxin, fluoroquinolones or clavamox. To reduce the severity if most symptoms, such as coughing or sneezing, prednisone can be given to your dog orally. Aerosol antibiotics should be given to dogs that are usually, or become, unresponsive to the antibiotics listed above. These would include gentamycin or polymyxin.
Other Non-medicinal Treatment
Other things you can do to care for your dog would be using a full harness when walking her, or preventing her from barking so much in order to keep strain off of the trachea.
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