Merle is a 10-month-old neutered male pug who came to us with a hacking cough that had been going on for over a week. He was neutered at an outside facility and a few days later the cough started. The day of his appointment, his cough was already improving.
While up to date on other vaccines, Merle had not had a kennel cough vaccine because he was not groomed or boarded on a regular basis. Fortunately, we knew this facility had an outbreak of kennel cough and asked that Merle and his owner wait outside for his appointment so our hospital was not similarly contaminated. We did an exam and Merle had no fever but when the doctor palpated his throat he immediately began coughing. Since it had been some time since Merle was exposed and he was much better, we prescribed an anti-inflammatory to ease his coughing. If it had been earlier we could prescribe an antibiotic but the worst part of the cough is actually due to the throat recovering from the disease and at this point, Merle had likely already beat back the infection.
Kennel cough is caused by a variety of bacteria and viruses. Some we vaccinate for in the normal distemper shot and we add in a Bordetella vaccine to prevent the worse parts of the infections. Unfortunately, no vaccine for kennel cough prevents the disease entirely but animals who are vaccinated are more likely to have a case like Merleās. Some animals are not as lucky and can get pneumonia which can be life-threatening. Animals who recover from kennel cough can have a cough that persists for weeks due to the cilia in the throat growing back. Guinea pigs can be severely affected by Bordetella and rabbits can be carriers but not show much signs of the disease.