essential pets
Listening to a Hack by Dr. Lori Scarlett, DVM If you have a cat (and possibly even if you don’t), you know how a hairball cough looks and sounds: the cat crouches down; extends its head and neck to make a long, fairly straight body; and then has a dry, hacking cough. Sometimes there is gagging afterwards and a hairball might come up, but often you just hear the noise and then the cat is fine. Many people don’t realize that their cat is actually coughing and not trying to bring up a hairball. Vomiting up hairballs happens in most cats, but
shouldn’t happen more than one or two times per month, and it’s a different action from a cough. Coughing in dogs sounds more like a cough that a human would make, but dogs can make weird noises that some people describe as a cough that doesn’t involve the lungs. A reverse sneeze is irritation in the back of the throat/pharynx area and isn’t forceful like a cough. The dog sounds like it’s in distress, but it’s more the equivalent of a
sneezing fit when you have allergies. A dog with a collapsing trachea will make a coughing sound, but it’s more of a honk. In this condition, some of the cartilage rings around the trachea weaken. When the affected dog breathes in, the trachea flattens, preventing the air from getting through. The dog will then have a dry, harsh cough, often described as a goose honk. Collapsing trachea coughs are worse with excitement, when the dog is trying to breathe in more air, or when a collar is pulled. Cats don’t usually cough, so if you hear what you think might be hairballs, there’s a good chance it has feline asthma, or feline allergic bronchitis. Dogs are also commonly affected by this disease. Bronchitis, like other -itises, is inflammation of the bronchi, or the airways in the lungs. If the cat or dog is sensitive to allergens or other irritants in the air, the airways produce more mucus and will spasm, decreasing the amount of air into the lungs and causing a cough and wheezing noise. Over time, the mucus starts to accumulate in the lungs, which can lead to secondary bacterial
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