estelle said:
Charlie had to go to vets today as i was really worried about him, he's had a nasty cough ever since we got him...this morning i came down to find him shivering and shaking :yikes
I rang the vets and they said to bring him along. They checked him over and told me he had pheumonia
.
He had a antibiotic jab and i have to give him tablets and sprinkle some special powder onto his dinners to break up the mucus on his chest.
surprisingly he didn't have a temperature!
They said if he's no better by monday I have to take him in for chest x-rays :yikes :yikes
Has anyone else had any experience with this, i'm really worried although the vet said it's a mild case and hopefully we've caught it in time.
How has he got this?
Poor Charlie and poor you--no wonder you're worried. I would guess this could be related to his other symptoms too, becoming increasngly clingy, not eating much, low weight, and maybe related to the swollen tummy. Karlin had mentioned the possibility of worms--do you have a record of the last time he was dewormed? worms will not necessarily show up on a stool sample.
That he has pneumonia may explain why he perked up after you took him to the vet before, with the bloody stool, and they gave him antibiotics. But if he didn't continue taking antibiotics after that day, the bacterial infection (if he has one) in his respiratory tract could've gotten stronger when the remaining organisms not killed by the antibiotics continued to reproduce. Hopefully the antibiotics he is taking now will take care of the infection and he will recover from this mild case of pneumonia.
If he's had a nasty cough every since you got him, would this be considered a case of kennel cough? Even if he was vaccinated for bordatella, there are various other germs that can cause kennel cough.
Now that the vet knows what's going on with him, hopefully the right medication will cure him. If it is kennel cough, it sometimes will go away after a time, but when they are so young they are vulnerable.
I would think, if he's not eating well, you should continue to give him small amounts of boiled chicket breast 4 or more times a day, just a tablespoon, several very small servings. you could try combining the chicken and white rice, just a tablespoon altogether, and mushing it together with a little water so that it's blended enough that he will get a little rice, for more nutrients, but if he's at least eating the chicken, the protein will be good for healing.
when i got my puppy, he had bloody diarrhea from the beginning and the woman i got him from said stress can cause a flare up in things like worms because stress can lower immunity, allowing the normallly small number of organisms to get out of check. He hadn't had the diarrhea before i brought him home, so thats why stress was considered. She sent me anti parasite and deworming medications but by the time they arrived i'd already seen the vet and brought in a stool sample which was negative, so the vet didn't treat him for worms, but have him an antibiotic. It didnt' work,so they gave him the same thing again 3 times but he kept getting worse. after 4 weeks, another vet said deworming medication should be tried, despite three negative stool samples, just to be sure, and he immediately got better from that.
After the pneumonia is under control, if he still has swollen tummy or bloody diarrhea, you could talk to the vet about trying worming. my pup had been previously dewormed, but it seems that with the stress of coming to a new home and losing his "family" his immunity may have been weakened enough for remaining worms to flare up.
i hope you will have quick improvement with charlie on the antibiotics. While he's sick, i would not try to teach him to be alone and ignore his barking, except maybe at bed time when the whole house is quiet and it's easier for him to settle down. i may be wrong about that, but i would no doubt end up wanting to comfort him a lot and reduce his stress, until the cough is cleared up. It's so good to hear he doesn't have a fever.