[yorkietalkjilly]

My Jilly once choked on a chew bone tied end she bit off and it lodged in her throat, cutting off her airway to just gasps. Her trachea began to swell around it and eventually she stopped breathing in the car on the way to the vet but I was able to breathe into her nostrils and apparently get some air in. But by the time we got to the vet and I sat her on the exam table, she was acting almost normal and the vet said the adrenaline of the choking and fighting to breathe and rushing her out into the cold night air and the harried drive to the vet, plus her own saliva and its enzymes, helped the swelling subside and softened the big end of the rawhide that was stuck so that it finally slid on down the trachea into her belly. She was checked out thoroughly and we were at the vet for hours while she was under observation but after we got home, she occasionally would cough and hack from the injury to the tissue of her throat.

Maybe your little one swallowed something that scratched the throat tissue but the excitement of going to the vet and the scents and presence of other dogs and cats around could have supressed him noticing the discomfort until he got back home.

My Tibbe is the same way. He recently began coughing, rasping and hacking badly every two hours or so one day and I took him to the vet where we had to wait 2 hours to get worked in as it was the day before Christmas Eve and unusually busy for some reason - and he never coughed even once - not once at the vet the entire time we were there; and yet he was doing it so badly at home that morning and early afternoon it got scary. Sure enough, after getting his medicine and coming home, he started back coughing badly again, though the antibiotics eventually cleared it up. But he gets so excited when we go to the vet, whatever is bothering him just seems to become secondary until we are home again.

If he keeps doing it, maybe you could video it for the vet if it doesn't go away.