Bushlands Pet Resort

Give your pets the holidays they deserve

About Canine Cough

Although dogs are vaccinated against canine cough, some will come home with it, or develop canine cough after they come home.  It is a highly infectious disease and canine cough infections usually occur as an outbreak.  The disease is air borne and dogs can be carriers without actually having it themselves, making it very difficult to detect until a dog starts to cough.  Typically the incubation period is a week to ten days and the dogs can infect other dogs before they actually show signs of having a cough themselves.  They can also pass it on for a period after they stop coughing.  Because it is so contagious, most boarding establishments are affected at some time and off leash areas such as the beach or the local park are common places where the infection will spread.

Canine cough vaccinations are similar to human flu vaccinations: We vaccinate dogs specifically against two organisms – Bortetella bronchiseptica and Parainfluenza.  These are the two most contagious and the dogs affected by them can become seriously ill. However, like human flu, there are other bacteria and viruses out there which can also cause respiratory tract infections.  At the last count we found there were 17 in total and the C5 vaccine provides absolutely no protection against these bugs.  It is these others that can cause canine cough to develop, despite your dog being vaccinated.

If your dog comes back from our kennels with canine cough, it doesn’t mean that we have been careless: these bugs are so contagious that it’s virtually impossible to contain them in a kennel situation during an outbreak, no matter how rigorous our cleaning & disinfection procedures are. Systematic control of the cough is all that is required in most cases of infection, and only rarely will it be necessary to use antibiotics for the control of secondary bacterial infections.  It is also important that you keep your dog away from other dogs for at least a week after your dog is no longer affected in order to minimise the risk of passing on the disease.

Should we get an outbreak, as a matter of policy we cancel future bookings to give clear time with no dogs in our kennels in order to clear the virus.  We  take the best possible care of the dogs that are with us at that time.  It is not practical to send them elsewhere at that stage as they risk spreading the disease further.

To return to About boarding your pet click here.

Often mistakenly referred to as kennel cough