Dog Park Woes...

[Robin & Josie]

We found (what I thought was) a great, fairly new dog park. We took Josie there last Saturday and she had a great time. Ran around for about an hour and a half, played with other nice dogs of all sizes and was nice and tired.

It went so well that we went back on Sunday. Sunday night she was licking her all of her paws. We gave her a bath, thinking she might have gotten something on her that was making her itchy (the surface was gravel - like a kids' playground.)

Monday we were at the vet. Turned out that her paw pads were all inflamed and irritated. Vet thought she may have overdone it - or gotten into something, but that would be odd at a dog park. Two days of steroid spray and doggie ibuprofen, and she was healed.

Then on Wednesday night, she started making this bizarre sound - as if she was choking. Back to the vet on Thursday. Diagnosis: "tracheitis" - essentially a mild form of kennel cough, which she has, of course, been vaccinated for. Likely picked it up at the dog park. Amoxicillin and codeine laced cough medicine and "rest". The "rest" part has been a challenge with a 7 month old. Not to mention no contact with other dogs. This could go on for days or weeks and could progress to pneumonia. Cough is better already, and will, hopefully continue to improve. Difficult week...

[Lori, Quincy & Frankie]

I kept him away from the source-the camp-since I wanted to make sure he did not get re-infected.  But if she is not symptomatic and is on antibiotics and especially if the vet said ok, Josie should be good to go next week.