Author Topic: general health of our huskies  (Read 1183 times)

Offline kelly10

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general health of our huskies
« on: April 03, 2006, 09:17:57 am »
We have two siberian huskies.  They will two in July.  They stay together in an indoor pen from 7:30 am to after work, some nights 7:00 pm.  They sleep inside. One of them has a constant itchy back.  She almost looks like she will go crazy her back is so itchy. Any suggestion for helping that??  The other husky we have has been coughing and hacking for quite sometime.  Some days it is worse, other days she doesn't cough hardly at all.  Some days i get so worried, she tries so hard to cough something up or whatever the problem is.  It looks painful she is coughing so hard. It seems to be worse when she wakes up, when she gets excited, when her sister chases her around and jumps on her.  Someone mentioned internal sneezing, anyone know anything about that?  Someone metioned kennel cough, but we tought that because we have two huskies, the other one should have it too but she doesn't.  They both seem to forever be eating snow or licking and eating the ground and some grass.  We use Nutrient dog food but are thinking about switching to Eagle something brand, some holistic food.  Maybe they are allergic to something in their food.  Any information would be great and very helpful. WE love our dogs and want them to be healthy and happy.  Thanks for your help!!

Offline Kermit

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Re: general health of our huskies
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2006, 09:36:35 am »
HI there! :)
Here's my ideas: first question I have is are your dogs on year-round heartworm prevention? I adopted a Siberian years ago who had the same coughing that you are describing, and it was because she had heartworms. That's something to consider. Otherwise I do think it is definitely possible for one of your dogs to have kennel cough and not the other. I kept a foster at my house who had a terrible case of kennel cough, and none of the other dogs here picked it up... so dogs have different immunity and some might get it while others stay healthy.

The itchiness... do you use any particular bedding? Or detergent for blankets? Just a thought, otherwise I would make sure there are no fleas... a dog who has a flea allergy will react terribly even if there are only one or two fleas!! And I would definitely recommend you switch foods if nothing else works, choose a food that says "allergy formula"... there are some great ones out there with no wheat, corn, soy, beef or chicken (common allergens). One I like to use for my allergy dog Zoot is Natural Balance venison and rice formula. He used to pull out his hair and now he has a gorgeous coat and no problems on the new food.

Best of luck to you!!! ;D
« Last Edit: April 03, 2006, 09:43:46 am by doghealer »