Oh dear… has your dog been coughing for the past few days?
If that’s the case, this should be tended to as soon as possible. A dog’s cough can vary from a common cough to chronic coughs. There can also be many possible causes and some can be quite serious. Before things may get worse, always be sure to give your dog a checkup with their veterinarian.To know more about dog coughs and cough suppressant for dogs, read below!
What Is A Cough Suppressant For Dogs?
A Cough Suppressant for dogs is basically one of the medical methods a veterinarian uses when treating chronic or dry coughs in dogs. It comes with its generic name which is Dextromethorphan. The medicine is placed inside a bottle. It takes place as pills or tablets at the right size for your dog.If your dog is puppy, do you want to know how to stop puppies cough?However, a Cough Suppressant is often mistaken as a Cough Expectorant. These two are completely different. But they do share the same purpose and that is to treat chronic and dry coughs. To know the difference between both, we can distinguish each on how they both can work.
The 2 Kinds of Over-The-Counter Cough Medicine for Dogs:
Cough Expectorants
How Cough Expectorant works are that it lessens the urge to cough by using a liquefying method that helps with liquefying the mucus secretions your dog has. This helps your dog cough this mucus up easily until there is no more.
With that gone, your dog wouldn’t have to cough every day anymore. There are two examples for this one, acetylcysteine and guaifenesin.
Cough Suppressants
Cough Suppressant help with your dog’s cough by suppressing the cough, or in other words, forcibly stopping the cough reflex. However, this method is used lesser compared to cough expectorant for this can cause risks to your dog. In some cases, it is actually very effective if not overused.
The Symptoms and Possible Causes to Why Your Dog is having a Cough
Like dog like the owner, we cough because of many things. It could be that we are surrounded by an irritating environment that is composed of smoke and other annoying gasses that can cause us to cough often. But gasses aren’t the only option. There are dirt, dust, germs, and other stuff that we could possibly breathe in. But there are also the viruses and infections that can be sent out to other sources. To sum it up, the possible causes of dog coughs are:
- Unclean environment
- Flu
- Dirt
- Germs
- Smoke
- Dust
- Contagious Coughs
- Viral Infections
- Viruses
While there are these causes, there are also the less common causes and these can be the cause of the most chronic to coughs:
- Lung problems
- Distemper
- Heart Disease
- Heartworms
- Fungal Infections
The symptoms of dog coughing:
Intense gagging- Difficulties of breathing
- Your dog makes hacking noises
- Always not in the mood
- Extreme frequent dry coughing
The signs that tell when you should go visit the vet:
- Your dog continues to cough after a week or more
- Your dog has developed a fever
- Your dog refuses to eat and has no interest in eating at all
- Your dog is always observed to be tired
- Your dog has other health problems
2 Home Remedies as Cough Medicine for Dogs
Just so that you won’t be short on options, you can try these 2 home remedies to act as cough medicine for your poor pooch…
- Home Remedy 1: Using Raw Honey
For this remedy, you can try any raw honey. However, if you’re willing to make the purchase, we recommend Manuka Honey to do the trick for it is often reviewed to be effective against dog coughing. The steps are quite simple: Tip: If ever your dog doesn’t want to drink it at all, you can try giving it to your dog with a dropper. Make sure to give him or her a few drops of the mixture directly into his mouth. This should be done every hour.
- Home Remedy 2: Using a Humidifier or Vaporizer
Like most of us humans who are having coughing and breathing problems, we use the humidifier. This method is also applicable to dogs.
- Place the humidifier or vaporizer beside your dog’s bed
- Be sure to calm your dog before letting him or her use the humidifier
Why is this useful? The soothing moisture that the humidifier consists of helps your dog breathe a little much better as this moisture goes through your dog’s airways and fill it up to stabilize breathing and help with dry coughs.
Tip: To make the process much more effective, you can try using essential oils to go with it. If you have a dropper present, you can use this to place a few drops of these essential oils into the vaporizer. Doing so helps ease your dog’s cough. Essential oils such as tea tree, lavender, and eucalyptus consist of an antiviral or an antibacterial formula which can get rid of any viral bacterial problems.
Conclusion
Seeing and hearing our dogs cough can sometimes cause us to wonder and even stay worried until we know what the problem truly is. When the symptoms suddenly occur, this would be the time we try to act what is needed to be done.
You don’t have to worry too much for coughs can be cured with only a few procedures depending on your dog’s condition. It may take a few days or a week for it to be cured. If ever it exceeds over a week, don’t ever be afraid to ask the veterinarian for some help.