Two of my Rainbow Bridge babies had collapsing trachea. Gracie, my littlest angel, had it from the time she was little. She whoever let it stop her, and she did everything at full speed. She lived a great life, even though she was only 9.5 when she passed away. I was hugely protective of her because I needed to be to prevent severe attacks, but she still played all the time. She had dentals yearly, often twice yearly, but it got to the point that our vet said it was too dangerous. It got steadily worse each year. Gracie had attacks where her throat would start to close and her temperature started to rise. She needed to be put on ice or submerged in cool water to get her temperature down. We always had air conditioning on for her, but she knew herself when she needed to cool down. Gracie would go to the back door, and I'd let her out. She ran immediately to our pool and stayed on the first step until her breathing went back to normal.
Gracie's sister, Ashley, had a collapsing trachea, but it was much milder than Gracie's. We discovered she had an enlarged heart close to her eleventh birthday. Since everything was within normal limits on her echocardiogram, our vet said it was enlarged because of her tracheal issues. In later years she had many gas pockets in her abdomen that we needed to treat. They were also caused from taking in too much air due to her tracheal problems. Ashley walked at least two miles a day up until a couple of days before she died. She was a month shy of seventeen. |