Collapsed trachia
 

Our 4 pound Yorkie, Oliver, has been diagnosed with a collapsing trachea. He makes a snorting, honking type noise when he exerts himself, especially when it is hot and humid. He did it a little last year, but this year it is much worse in frequency and intensity. The vet said the only thing to do is help him calm down and move him to a cooler, less humid environment. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

I agree with your vet. My little Gracie had CT from the time she was little. I always carried ice or a block of ice with me wherever we went, so that I could cool her down if necessary. You can start with a spray bottle of water, but that was never enough for Gracie. When she would get excited, her trachea would swell and her temperature would climb to dangerously high levels. I needed to submerge her in cool water to get her temperature down. Once I did that, her breathing within a minute would return to normal. Gracie did not let her CT stop her. She enjoyed every moment of her life and lived life full speed ahead. Gracie's CT was severe, though. Her older sister had it also, but it was much milder and only when she got older. Ashley lived a month shy of seventeen years. I hope you find ways to help your baby. I'm here to help if you need me.

There was a medicine my vet put my moms yorkie on that helped massively he doesn't have problems at all now.

Buster has collapsing trachea as well, there is surgery available...not sure if there are vets that specialize with this surgery in your area since its quite complicated but they essentially replace the cartilage rings that are weak and have collapsed with new artificial rings.

Also, my vet gave me some pills to give Buster for severe coughing attacks. Its called Vanectyl-P and 1/2 a tablet every 12 hours or as needed.

But otherwise, if the coughing isnt too bad my vet said its ok to give baby cough syrup to my yorkie. He advised me to find cough syrup for a newborn baby age 0-...pretty much find cough syrup that has the smallest age recommendation on it. I bought 2 one was a shoppers drug mart brand in grape flavor and the other was a homeopathic syrup and my vet approved both. The grape flavored one he told me to give 1ml(1cc) every 6 hours or as needed and the homeopathic one 1/2ml(1/2cc) every 4 hours or as needed. I was using those as directed every 4-6 hours for about 4-5 days and his coughing went away and got significantly better.

He does still cough when excited or if his throat is rubbed on something etc but much better than he was. I only have to use the cough syrup on rare occasion and usually at night.

Try and keep your yorkie calm..i know its sad but its best to have them coughing at little as possible because the coughing is very irritating to the throat and in the long run can worsen the collapsing trachea.

Good luck stay strong!

My vet said the surgery is still experimental and she would never recommend that unless its was a really really bad case.

what is the name of the medicine?

Ashley was given hydrocodone short term when she badly irritated her trachea. It helped break the cycle of her coughing. I live on Long Island, too, and I see a vet in Westhampton who is amazing. He uses both eastern and western medicine, and over the span of fifteen years going there, I have met so many people who travelled to see him when their veterinarians referred them to him. The stories that i have heard from talking with these people are incredible and heartwarming. Ashley took two herbs that he developed that helped her trachea a lot.

The 'Miracle' Vet - TODAY.com

Mine does this too sometimes. Happens when she gets too excited, and mostly during the summer (I live in Arizona). The weather is more dry here though so it's a pretty rare occurrence, and usually lets up on its own after 10-20 seconds. I didn't know Yorkies had this kind of problem until recently, but now that I know what it is I feel a little better. I hope you and Oliver find a suitable remedy!

hydrocodone

Jack is 6 and was diagnosed with it at 4 years old. His vet is always recommending he get the surgery and says that he is a good candidate for it. I've also heard that it's in the experimental stage which is why I'm iffy about it. He takes medicine as needed and on days when it's hot and his coughing worsens I wet him down completely and that tends to calm him down. I have to be careful with having company over because even that can set him off. He's been to the ER 4 times this year. They normally give him a steroid shot and oxygen. I think the main thing is to try to keep your dog calm as much as possible. Holding Jack while he coughs also seems to help calm him down. I am interested to know what you think as far as operation. That is something my husband and I have been considering for Jack...I just wish there were more research and reviews from people who have taken this route with their dogs.

My vet says it is a very expensive surgery and that it does not always help. I don't think they recommend it for dogs over 6yrs. old. Could be wrong but I think that is what they recommend if they are younger. Kayla has CT bad. We do and try to manage it every way we can. I would not put her through the surgery that is still kinda experimental. Hope you find something that helps and works for your baby. CT is horrible.

I wonder if some type of asthma nebulizer treatment would work. I have bad asthma, and the nebulizer treatments take down the swelling in all the breathing passages very quickly. I wonder if any vets have ever tried this ?

Hmmm I decided to google about it and they do use nebulizer treatments, here is one link where a vet talks about it, but there are many articles available http://www.justanswer.com/pet-dog/1a...se-trigie.html , hope this helps.

I had a friend lose her fur baby to this very thing, as she did not know about it at the time and it was caused by a collar. She was the one that told me to be careful and never use a collar.

Hmm this has me curious now. My Maltese that lives with my mom has done this for years. We weren't sure what it was =\ maybe I should bring this up to my mom so she can have him looked at. I'm sorry about your baby. Keeping you guys in my prayers and hope you figure ways to cope with it :)

My 3 year old has quite a bad tracheal collapse, and, as many of the stories above, he has a hard time during hot days.

Over the summer, he is on hycodan (codeine cough syrup), Vanectyl P (antihistamine/corticosteriod) and benadryl (bad allergies which have made the TC worse). We've weaned him off the Vanectyl P as he was gaining weight that we couldn't control with exercise due to having two bad luxating patellas. Lucky us. Instead of the Vanectyl P, we've moved to an inhaled steroid (Ventolin and Flovent) through a puffer twice a day. It's hard to say if he's doing well due to the change, or due to the change in temperature (fall is a lovely time for him!). Nonetheless, I am so far happy with how he's been. When he starts honking, which he still does, we'll remove him from whatever is exciting him (so many things!), and we find if we carry him, he'll stop almost immediately. We haven't had to give him the hycodan in probably a month, so that is uplifting!

As for surgery. We've had a consult with an orthopedic surgeon, which was enlightening to say the least. While he is a prime candidate for a stent, the vet was strongly against stenting him, as she has never had a dog last more than a year. Her reasoning is actually quite sound, and it was rather eye opening to me. You have an irritated trachea, and you open it up with a foreign object. While you can now breathe, the already irritated trachea is now being constantly irritated by this permanently lodged foreign object that their body is trying to reject/remove from your system...and it can't. Surgery, for us, will be off the table forever as it currently stands.

I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this. :(

I am so sorry your baby has this horrible disease. My first Yorkie, Prince, had it as well. Sending prayers to your baby.

dog
 

My old Spud 9yrs does that hacking cough number when I take him on a walk. We stop, he coughs and we go on. I have to take it easy with him. It scares me when he has his hack attack.