anyone herd of puppy strangles???(pictures added)

hi everyone


Just thought id bring this topic up about this disorder and see if anyone had come across it?

Unfortunately our ruby holly had this disorder a year ago when she was a puppy and we were very worried about her for a long time. Fortunately she got through it relatively unscathed and you wouldn’t even know she had this particular nasty and sometimes fatal disorder.

I’m not a vet so don’t quote me on any of this it’s just what I can recall.

Anyway what I know is that it’s a disorder that can occur in puppies less than four months old where the glands in the neck appear to be swollen and can result in swellings or pustules around the muzzle, neck, in the ears, around the eyes and other parts of the body. They then can burst and crust over and sometime get infected. Sometimes the glands in the neck can get so enlarged or swollen that they can cut off the puppies airways and hence the name puppy strangles.

When my mam brought her home we just noticed her eyelids were very swollen but the person my mam got holly from said her brother (tri boy) had an eye infection so we thought that’s what it would be. My mam and dad took her to the vet and basically said she has puppy strangles and you should take her back to the breeder because they shouldn’t have sold her at all and it will be expensive to treat. We were just too attached and we didn’t know what would happen to holly so we kept her!!! The vet gave us eye cream and antibiotics and told us to brace ourselves because this condition can get very nasty and sometimes be fatal! Her eyes looked swollen and awful, her glands were huge and she had sort of blisters all on her muzzle but she was never down and had tons of energy. Holly seen the vet every week to monitor her condition and she did get better very slowly and now shes fine and she doesn’t have any scaring or hair loss. The vet said that she was incredibly lucky that her condition wasn’t severe and it was the mildest form shed ever seen! It did cost my mam a lot of money but she was worth every penny!!

I do have few pics of her with puppy strangle which ill post later on.

I have never heard of the condition. So glad to hear Holly recovered from it! :flwr:

I have never heard of it either but it sounds awful!! Did you notify your breeder about the condition? There should have been some form of compensation for that, because if you had returned her, the breeder would have had to deal with the financial burden. I would have asked for some form of refund, even if you kept her...Is that totally off? :?

not many people have herd of it even some vets arent familiar with it.we didnt have a clue what it was till holly had it.Apparently it may be a immune problem but not much is known. I did read somewhere that so little is known that some vets put the puppy down because they just don’t know what it is or how to treat it.

We did go to the person my mam got holly from and they would give us our money back but we were too attached. The women wasn’t a breeder her two cavs just mated by accident.

but she is better now so were very lucky.i just wanted to bring the subject up incase someone else is going trough it or gone trough it.

That's a nice story Kim. You and your parents are kind and generous to take such good and expensive care of a new puppy. A blessing to be sure Holly is a beauty. Easy to believe you all fell in love instantly. I think I did on the drive home from getting Tucker. He was all bundled up in a baby's receiving blanket, that I held against my chest. I talked to him all the way home.

I just did a Google search on 'Puppy Strangles' and there's lots of information. Thanks for enlightening us about this condition.

I am so glad for you and your family that Holly recovered! :flwr:

I've only heard of strangles as a horse ailment.

I had edited the last post as i think i didn't explain properly what happend to a pup we bred ........... he was 7 weeks old when he developed a poorly eye after comming into contact with a blanket his new owners had brought over ....within hrs he was at the vets with what was first thought to be an eye infection and was treated accordingly
within a few days the eye hadn't improved in fact both were looking sore and swollen back to vets who mentioned Juvinille Pyoderma but he had no other symptons ( no neck swelling etc) he was treated with antibiotics with a small improvement BUT when they finished we had to take him back when i discoverd his glands in his neck were up

vet said straight away ( scratching his head ) he was going to treat it as strangles even though he wasn't 100% sure if it were it would be very mild ..this puppy was happy playful and eating throughout with bags of energy ....steroid treatment began and within days he was 100 % improved with out thoughts leaning more towards pyoderma

Pyoderma can be treated easliy with steroids combined with antibiotics it depends how mild-severe the pup has it to the length of treatment required and the amount of scaring left behind ..it is thought our puppy picked up a germ and his imunne system wasn't 100% at the time ....his little body was finding it hard to cope

there is tons of info on the net about it ..its more common than we think BUT good news is once treated and immune system kicks in puppies live a normal happy life many with no scaring as in our case

hi inca

i definitely relate to what you said in your last post. We were so scared because the vet said it could become very nasty so we were bracing ourselves for a really terrible illness. Thank god it was only mild and she recovered well and looks fine now.

i found some pictures off my old moblie phone of her with puppy strangles

you can see her eyes are very swollen and she has blisters on her muzzle


close up of hollys muzzle


you can see some blisters near her lip


her eyes looked swollen even when they were closed

Those pictures are so pitiful looking. Poor baby. So glad she got through this okay!

i know bless her i cant believe how swollen she looked

shes great now though

Oh look at that happy and healthy face now! You'd never know she once looked like that with the swollen eyes.

oh bless her - I 'd heard of it but didn't know much about it.

Thanks for sharing your story...and you too Inca for sharing.

Thanks for letting us know about it, I had heard of it but wasn't sure what it was either. I am so glad that your little angel has grown into such a healthy young lady. She's beautiful :flwr:

Thanks for all that information, I must be honest and admit I had never heard of it before but am more than grateful to have learnt about it now...

Thank you once again... :flwr:

Alison, Wilts, U.K.