My dog won't stop coughing. Vet is stumped. What tests are next?

Question

My dog has been coughing since the end of January. He has taken antibiotics twice and prednisone twice and is still coughing and it’s now March 1st. He’s 5 years old and has been healthy up until now. Even the vet is having a hard time trying to figure out what’s wrong. Any suggestions? What tests should we run on him? Every time he gets up or gets excited he starts to cough. Please help! Pet's info: Dog | Maltipoo | Male | neutered | 16 lbs

Lauren Jones VMD · Accepted Answer

Poor guy! It sounds as though you've been through quite a bit with him! As you know, coughing this frequently is certainly not normal. In dogs, coughing can be caused by infectious conditions (including kennel cough), collapsing trachea, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, parasitic diseases (including heartworm disease and lungworms), among others. Since the cough hasn't resolved with the antibiotics or prednisone trials, it sounds as though more extensive diagnostic testing is in order. If it hasn't already been done, I would consider asking your vet about taking 3 views of chest x-rays to check out the size of his heart, lung fields, and trachea size. Your vet may also recommend a Baermann fecal test to check for lungworms, a blood test to check for heartworm disease, or a bronchoalveolar lavage, which passes a bit of sterile saline through the trachea and withdraws as much as possible to evaluate the types of cells present and to culture any bacteria residing in the lungs. Given Max Perez's age and tiny size, I would hazard a guess that a collapsing trachea may be to blame. The good news is that tracheal narrowing is pretty easy to spot on x-rays, but the bad news is that there isn't anything that fixes the problem. Best of luck with everything!

My dog won't stop coughing. Vet is stumped. What tests are next?

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