Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

Re: Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

Bob Russell — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:33:36 GMT

If you take the chance to check the back of throats, quite a lot of KC dogs are sore!

In the olden days practices generally had a winchester bottle of ordinary 'drowsy' Benylin for coughing horses. Not much good but this was pre-Ventipulmin days. It was licensed for dogs as well.

If owners want something to give, I tend to stick to recommending this as it never seemed to do any harm!

I work on the assumption that by giving NSAI's, the reduced coughing (many stop in a couple of days) also reduces the infection risk. I have not seen any papers to suggest antibiotics reduce the rate of infection so would appreciate any links.

Bordetella infections in children do not seem to receive automatic antibiotics as far as I am aware.

Re: Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

Martin Atkinson — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 09:55:56 GMT

I had a puppy in for its first vaccine yesterday which had typical kennel cough symptoms a few days after coming from the breeder. It is bright, happy, eating, temperature normal. Not only did I not give it antibiotics I gave it it's first vaccine as I felt that was more important to get it out and socialising/habituating ASAP rather than delay that. I would have been less happy about vaccinating a puppy on antibiotics than leaving it with a bit of a cough. If I felt antibiotics were justified I would use Doxycycline and warn them of the very small risk of enamel discoloration, CF kittens with Chlamydophila (which could open another Pandora's Box)!

Re: Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

David Mills — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 23:15:24 GMT

Here in almost central London, anything with KC gets dosed. It reduces the infectious period and the timeframe of disease. If you think people will isolate their dog because it's got a cough, they won't, and that goes for most parts of the country. Also, we've seen an increase in young dogs (<3y) with pneumonia. I very much suspect these are due to a virulent strain of B.B. Normally they would get tmps or amoxiclav. doxy is fine, but expensive in its licensed form. I've never seen any problems with tooth enamel - this goes across 100s of cats we treat with flu/2y infection. I suspect if you dug down into where that dogma comes from it'll be right up there with the mammary tumour 50:50 split, ACP causes collapse in Boxers (was it n=8 from the 60s?), and catgut is the devil's suture.

Can someone explain the honey in water thing? I've heard it many a time, along with 'childs benilyn'. KC is a tracheal/bronchial issue, not pharyngeal so how can it possibly help unless the dog aspirates some?? Not having a go at anyone in particular here but it bemuses me - especially when we vitriolically dismiss homeopathy...

Re: Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

Rob Davis — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 15:24:30 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Very young puppies are about the only group I would routinely put onto antibiotics. My experience is that the typical hacking cough dogs that are otherwise well do better with NSAI's than antibiotics.[/quote]

I agree with this.

[quote user="Bob Russell"]I would use co-amox or just possibly co-trim as my first line. [/quote]

I had a CKCS puppy with hacking cough, treated with amoxyclav, no improvement. Eventually did BAL and cultured bordatella. Apparently amoxyclav does not penetrate bronchial secretions well, so ok if confined to URT, but if spread to LRT then is not a good choice. From memory I think I used baytril which resolved things rapidly (though obviously not ideal in young patient either)

Re: Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

Bob Russell — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 13:05:53 GMT

Very young puppies are about the only group I would routinely put onto antibiotics. My experience is that the typical hacking cough dogs that are otherwise well do better with NSAI's than antibiotics.

I would use co-amox or just possibly co-trim as my first line.

Re: Doxycycline for kennel cough in puppies

Nicola Lawlor — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 12:56:57 GMT

Honestly I very rarely give antibiotics for kennel cough. I usually give meloxicam and suggest something like a little honey in water for soothing the cough a bit and let nature do its thing, warn them they can cough for a few weeks in worst cases though most are much better within a couple of weeks. If the dog is unwell in itself with pyrexia, or I have concerns for possible pneumonia etc then those cases may get antibiotics. Usually I would use Synulox in these cases. I personally would avoid doxycycline in pups if at all possible due to the possible risk to tooth enamel though I believe this risk may not be as great as I once thought.