“compared with covid it’s nothing,” said dr. gabrielle carrière, the head veterinarian at the montreal spca. “it makes dogs cough, and it makes them snort, sometimes they sneeze and they have green discharge … and it’s usually a very benign infection.”
still, she pointed out how alarming the virus can be to pet owners who don’t know what it is.
“it’s pretty spectacular — in the sense that i realized i’d never heard my dog cough, so it was pretty scary,” said myriam sauvé, whose dog django caught the virus at the girouard dog park in notre-dame-de-grâce last month.
in rarer cases, dogs may need to be hospitalized, “but that’s really rare, most dogs don’t need any treatment at all,” carrière said.
casper is one of the cases that ended in hospitalization, proulx said, when his cough turned into pneumonia.
“he’s coughing a lot, like an old man that’s been smoking all his life,” she said.
kennel cough can be caused by viruses or bacteria.
“when it’s the bacteria that’s causing it, then antibiotics can help — but that’s only in some of the cases,” carrière said.
pet owners who suspect their dogs have kennel cough can monitor them for a few days before taking them to the vet. if they’re showing symptoms but are otherwise behaving normally, there’s no need to panic.