Coach's Recent Episode

[Guest TaraCoachCougar]

About ten minutes ago, Coach came in from a potty break (unsupervised in fenced yard) and began reverse sneezing. It sounded like she might have had something caught in her throat that she was trying to get back up. After about 8-10 of these, she tore through the house back outside and viciously began eating (more) grass. She has been known to occassionally graze. She probably ate it for about 5-8 minutes. She has come back inside the house, but I know she has a belly full of grass. She has also went to her water bowl about 3 times since coming back in. Any clues on this one?

 

These dogs are going to drive me to an early grave! I soar so far over into panic mode that I feel horrible.

 

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions you can give.

 

Tara

[Greytlady94]

The best way I can explain is that without knowing except by instinct, she is trying to vomit for some reason. Something has her tummy really messed up. I would go outside and also in the house to see if you can tell what she may have been eating on or chewing on.

 

With such an extreme amount of grass eating and drinking I would probably help the process a bit with some hydrogen peroxide. Edited to add...don't do this without checking with your vet or an ER clinic.

Edited August 1, 2007 by Greytlady94

[LakeshoreGreys]

How is she doing now?

[Greytlady94]

Just checking on Coach.

[Guest TaraCoachCougar]

Coach ate her supper, rested well and ate breakfast this morning without any problems. No more reverse sneezing episodes. She has had an occassional regular sneeze (maybe two, and I think I've had more than that) and she was rubbing her face after she ate last next. I'm not sure if that was just normal after meal smearing of remaining food on dog beds and people bed comforter or if maybe she has some allergy issues right now.

 

After returning home today, she's gone out to potty twice (#1 first time and then#2). She has made an occassion pass through the sunroom where the door to the big open potty is, but I'm not let her out again. She will normally whine if she wants out and we haven't noticed so I'm waiting on that.

 

DH will be taking her to the vet along with Cougs tomorrow and I'll send an explanation and ask them to just look over her to see if they detect anything out of the ordinary since she's on enalapril for a heart murmur. She's not had trouble with that before though. (Cougar is going since he removed his own stitches from last week's incident and I want our new vet, who isn't close enough in an emergency situation to look over his wound and see if he needs to do anything other than continue the antibiotic he's on.)

 

Thanks for the well wishes. I'll post again if her tummy seems upset throughout the evening or she gets back into the excessive grass eating.

 

Tara

 

 

[Guest luckydog]

Make sure the vet looks up Coach's nose. Do you have foxtails in your area?

[Guest Snowy8]

It could be sinus drainage, then its on her throat & the grass is scratching her throat. This happened to a norwegian elkhound I had, and it turned out to be strep throat. The sinus drainage, just like a human, makes the throat raw, the eating grass helps to soothe the throat.

[Guest Winterwish]

I wonder if Coach breathed in a little bug while eating all that grass and was trying to get rid of it?

 

Sending good thoughts out to you,Cougar,and Coach. Good luck at the vet tomorrow!

[Guest greytexplorer]

Good wishes! Keep us posted!

[Guest TaraCoachCougar]

Coachie update - The vet listened to her heart and said it sounded fine. He felt like it might be allergies and put her on Clemastine Fumarate for 3 weeks. So far so good. It could have been drainage that caused the whole thing. She has had eye boogies a little more than normal over the past couple of weeks. I remember when my son had a terrible cold with drainage this past winter and he had eye boogies out the wahzoo.

 

I'm not sure what a foxtail is, but they have a limited fenced backyard that we can pretty much see all of from our back steps. Inside the fence, all we have is grass, white pebble rock, one tree and the occasionally weed. As for the bug, she's been known to knowingly scarf up a dormant bug.

 

Cougs is doing well. I'll update about the vet visit in his thread as to not duplicate.

 

 

[sobesmom]

Glad everything's ok.

 

I worried myself sick one time when Sobe kept making hacking noises, and his toungue hung out of his mouth for hours...but he acted fine.

 

Then - I caught him snapping at bees in the yard. I think he caught a bee and it stung his tongue. He was fine, but it drove me crazy until I figured it out!

 

[Guest luckydog]

Foxtails are a nasty product of a weed that is prevalent in the southwest. It's the seed part of a weed that is V-shaped, and likes to lodge itself in a carrier so that it can propagate a new area. We had one get up our dogs nose once when I lived in Arizona. I don't know where you live, so I was just throwing it out there in case that is where you are.