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almost 3 years ago

As more and more articles come out about this mysterious canine respiratory illness happening across the US I feel that it is our time to share our story and experiences. I am only sharing this to hopefully provide some additional information to someone who may also be dealing with this illness and to provide support because we know exactly how you feel. The last week of August our Finn developed a random cough. He was eating and drinking and acting normally but had a random dry cough. As the week went on he started to get lethargic so we made an appointment at the vet. The vet wanted to treat it like it was kennel cough and we started him on Doxycycline. Midway through treatment his cough evolved into a wet cough and he was becoming more lethargic. Went back to the vet for an X-ray and found his lungs looked horrible. Decided to test for blasto and start fungal meds as a precaution. At this time the coughing was getting worse and he was up all night coughing up phlegm. Blasto test came back negative so we discontinued fungal meds and decided his heart needed to be looked at. Finn was then sedated and bloodwork was completed and an echocardiogram was performed. All tests where sent to a specialist in Texas the confirmed his heart looked and was functioning normal but per the X-ray and history is was probably a severe resistant bacterial pneumonia. Per these results we started a 10 day treatment of Baytril. Within a couple days we noticed Finn acting more like himself and his cough was getting better. We then rechecked an X-ray and the lungs looked better but were still pretty ugly so we did another round of Baytril. During this round we didn’t really notice any improvement but he also didn’t get any worse. Since he was still coughing it was decided to do a final round of the Baytril. On day 3 or 4 he finally stopped coughing so we continued out the meds and just as we started the final 2 days of the meds his cough came back. We did another X-ray and was told we needed to be referred to the referral center for further testing. Started the referral process and went to make an appointment to find out the soonest we could get in was Jan. 2024. Was not willing to wait so started calling WI Vet School and other internal medicine vets with no success of any sooner appointments. At this point I started reaching out to any and all of my connections in the vet field to try and find someone willing to complete more testing. Was able to get an appointment at the vet hospital I worked at when I moved to Wisconsin. We did more bloodwork, sedated Finn for a tracheal wash which we sent out samples for cultures and fluid analysis and took samples for a respiratory illness panel. We waited patiently and all the results came back negative. Decided to start a round of Temeril P (cough suppressant/steroid). Midway through this a coworker showed me an article about this mysterious canine respiratory illness. I started reading through the articles and realized quickly that this is exactly what what we had been dealing with since August. Called our vet and shared the information and we made a plan to start an aggressive treatment that had been successful in a dog that was being treated at the vet school. That night I picked up 3 different antibiotics with hope that this would do the trick. We just finished our last dose yesterday and we are at day 7 of no coughing. It had been a very stressful 3 months but things are looking promising with our big guy. We have had so many people asking about Finn throughout this whole situation and that has definitely helped knowing how many of our friends and family care about him as much as we do. He never was around any other dogs before he got sick and his brother never got sick so it has definitely been a big mystery but we are happy that he is feeling better and fingers crossed he will continue to improve more everyday! Please share! #mysterydogillness #dog #puppies

ApeMingo's tweet photo. As more and more articles come out about this mysterious canine respiratory illness happening across the US I feel that it is our time to share our story and experiences. I am only sharing this to hopefully provide some additional information to someone who may also be dealing with this illness and to provide support because we know exactly how you feel.

The last week of August our Finn developed a random cough. He was eating and drinking and acting normally but had a random dry cough. As the week went on he started to get lethargic so we made an appointment at the vet. The vet wanted to treat it like it was kennel cough and we started him on Doxycycline. Midway through treatment his cough evolved into a wet cough and he was becoming more lethargic. Went back to the vet for an X-ray and found his lungs looked horrible. Decided to test for blasto and start fungal meds as a precaution. At this time the coughing was getting worse and he was up all night coughing up phlegm. Blasto test came back negative so we discontinued fungal meds and decided his heart needed to be looked at. Finn was then sedated and bloodwork was completed and an echocardiogram was performed. All tests where sent to a specialist in Texas the confirmed his heart looked and was functioning normal but per the X-ray and history is was probably a severe resistant bacterial pneumonia. Per these results we started a 10 day treatment of Baytril. Within a couple days we noticed Finn acting more like himself and his cough was getting better. We then rechecked an X-ray and the lungs looked better but were still pretty ugly so we did another round of Baytril. During this round we didn’t really notice any improvement but he also didn’t get any worse. Since he was still coughing it was decided to do a final round of the Baytril. On day 3 or 4 he finally stopped coughing so we continued out the meds and just as we started the final 2 days of the meds his cough came back. We did another X-ray and was told we needed to be referred to the referral center for further testing. Started the referral process and went to make an appointment to find out the soonest we could get in was Jan. 2024. Was not willing to wait so started calling WI Vet School and other internal medicine vets with no success of any sooner appointments. At this point I started reaching out to any and all of my connections in the vet field to try and find someone willing to complete more testing. Was able to get an appointment at the vet hospital I worked at when I moved to Wisconsin. We did more bloodwork, sedated Finn for a tracheal wash which we sent out samples for cultures and fluid analysis and took samples for a respiratory illness panel. We waited patiently and all the results came back negative. Decided to start a round of Temeril P (cough suppressant/steroid). Midway through this a coworker showed me an article about this mysterious canine respiratory illness. I started reading through the articles and realized quickly that this is exactly what what we had been dealing with since August. Called our vet and shared the information and we made a plan to start an aggressive treatment that had been successful in a dog that was being treated at the vet school. That night I picked up 3 different antibiotics with hope that this would do the trick. We just finished our last dose yesterday and we are at day 7 of no coughing. It had been a very stressful 3 months but things are looking promising with our big guy.

We have had so many people asking about Finn throughout this whole situation and that has definitely helped knowing how many of our friends and family care about him as much as we do. He never was around any other dogs before he got sick and his brother never got sick so it has definitely been a big mystery but we are happy that he is feeling better and fingers crossed he will continue to improve more everyday!
Please share!
#mysterydogillness #dog #puppies

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