My 11.5 year old Brittany has started to cough a lot more. I suspect it may be heart issues. I have a vet appointment scheduled for tommorow.

Has anybody found medicine or supplements that have helped their dog. ?

Watching this thread. In looking into the coughing of one of our senior dogs discovered her heart murmur has gotten more pronounced and her heart is “rounded”. Likely unrelated to the cough, which appears to be kennel cough and is responding to treatment, but one more thing to track down…

There are some specific medications that your vet can prescribe. As for supplements, not a good idea.

This is a tough row to hoe, BTDT and then end eventually came.

Good Luck,

RMD

We have had two dogs that had heart murmurs that progressed into heart failure.

If the vet suspects any heart issues I highly recommend finding a cardiologist. We did with both of our dogs and they had bi-yearly echos. I know that extended their lives.

Both were put on Vetmedin and a diuretics. Problem with diuretics is they can cause kidney failure.

If you pup is coughing it can be an enlarged heart pressing on the trachea.

I also downloaded the Cardalis app on my iPhone. It measures the respiratory rate of your dog, really helpful to keep track of it

Hopefully it is something else.

Please keep us updated.

My dog was tested with very high probnp, should be less than 900 but his was 3900. Took him to a vet cardiologist at Ohio State University. He is in the very early stages of heart failure, presently only a slight murmur but no enlarging or rounding of the heart. There are medicines and supplements that were prescribed to him by my local vet that found the problem prior to the OSU visit.

Vet said his heart murmur is a little worse and heart is enlarged.He was put on pimobendan 10 mg a day. We will try him on this med for amonth and see if it helps him!! also gave him a antibiotic.

The other half is going through this with her mini pincher (plus it happened with her Dachshund. Well she got the dogs when her mom passed away).

We have taken her to a cardiologist, and they have put her on the following meds.

Furmosemide
Aldactone
Lotensin
Vetmedin

The last couple of days her coughing has gotten pronounced so we have to take her in for a blood panel.

The vetmedin is expensive, so we started getting it at either sams club or Costco.

One of my cats (one of three left from the original crew from Virginia) maybe starting to go through this.

The best thing we ever did was get pet insurance.

We are getting back over 70% of the money from an emergency visit last weekend for the cat mentioned above.

I wish we would have had insurance back when my huskie mix and shepherd mixes got sick. With the money I spent on Panzer, I could have bought a bass boat and new F150.

We had a beagle with heart failure and she lived almost 7 years past her diagnosis with medication. The standard cocktail is Vetmedin, Lasix, and Enalapril. Monitor kidney function with routine labs. It’s a common issue for dogs and if properly treated, they can live a long time, depending on severity.

Our dachshund, who we rescued in 2020, is now 14. He had been doing well and then he began to experience issues. At first we thought it was diet as he was not eating his normal amount of food. Ollie was just not his normal self, and his new brother Schnickelfritz, who we rescued a few months ago, was somewhat the same.

Our vet figured they both probably ate something in our fenced in courtyard and so that was the first approach to help. Schnick responded quickly but Ollie did not.

Fast forward to this past week-end and on walks Ollie would go 10', sit down, another 10' etc. He was eating a bit more, but, still not his normal amount. Then he started heavy breathing. We got him to the vet yet again and he found a heart murmur. Yikes!

Our vet put him on a 2.5 mg tablet of Enalapril two times a day & ordered a full blood test.

Miraculously, Ollie started getting better after only 3 doses. He has returned to eating his normal full meal 2x/day and is walking much better.

The blood test came back completely normal so we don't need to take any further steps for the time being.

My hope for you is you have the same luck!

He has been doing pretty good on the meds. Less coughing and better endurance. Still sleeps alot. I guess its just his age starting to show. My wife and are are both very attached to him and its just sad to watch them deteriorate

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
He has been doing pretty good on the meds. Less coughing and better endurance. Still sleeps alot. I guess its just his age starting to show. My wife and are are both very attached to him and its just sad to watch them deteriorate

Yes, it is very hard to watch them deteriorate!
We have a 15.5 yr old Golden Retriever that we got at about 10 weeks. We are at the stage we have to put a diaper on her every night and make sure we get her outside every couple of hours during the day time.

Our attachment sometimes gets in the way of better judgment, if they are suffering and we want to keep them around for our sake.
When our dear golden was suffering from fluid in the lungs from breast cancer, the vet asked my wife "Why are we doing this?"

Yeah, it can be challenging. We had Bella, a Queensland heeler/lab mix that loved everyone, especially kids. Maybe fifteen years ago she was a little off and had a low white blood cell count. Our vet sent us up to Atascadero where they do more imaging. They were a little puzzled that we were there with so little indication, but when they did the imaging and when they looked they found cancer had taken over her left frontal lobe of her lung. Down to Ventura to a vet med surg place and they removed the left frontal lobe, getting clean margins. Saw the oncologist, “Everything looks great, it was a slow growing cancer and they got it all.” At the six month recheck “Everything still looks great, come back in a year.” Six months later it was back and her lungs were filling up with fluid. Our vet drained her lungs and she felt better, back to her usual self. A month later she started slowing down and needed drained again. Four good happy normal dog weeks between draining? That’s fine. When the time between drainings got shorter, it was time. Had dinner on the patio of a great local restaurant, got her a filet, then said goodbye the next morning.

Recently said goodbye to Harley, an Aussie Shepherd whose trouble passing a BM turned out to be several masses in his abdomen. When they called to report and asked if they should not wake him up, the lovely bride responded, “The kids would kill me.” Vet said three months. He got ten, though it was a lot of work. After a couple of months he became urinary incontinent and was in diapers, then wraps and diapers from then on. He was still himself, wanting to play, wanting to go, walk, generally grabass with the other dogs right up to the end. He developed a mass in his bladder that caused some tenderness and while he still wanted to go, to play, whatever, he slowed down a little. We knew the time was drawing near and had been watching carefully for “Is he having fun?” for months, then the vet pointed out that if he stopped being able to urinate it would be an emergency and added that she’d rather be two days too early than two minutes too late. Fortunately, the kids were able to be in town and say goodbye.

It really isn’t easy. You have to keep asking yourself if you’re doing right by the dog, and it isn’t always easy to answer.