What am I going to do=(................Child with Asthma and having 3 doodles!!

[Barb, Murphy, Emmet, & Hudson]

Sunday was one of the worst day's ever! I ended up taking my 7 year old daughter to the Hospital when she woke up and was having trouble breathing my mother was watching her at the time. She called me out of work and we took her in right away, I took one look at her laying on the couch and couldn't believe it! Her little body was working so hard to breath. At this point I didn't know what was going on with her. We spent Sunday night in the Hospital with her having ton's of breathing treatments, her body wasn't responding to them. Chest x-rays and lab work were done on her. It wasn't untill the next day that her oxygen level was starting to come back up. What I found out she had was a severe asthma attack. Now that I know what we are dealing with I want to do everything possible to prevent this again. The doctor said NOT to have any dog's or cat's in the house! There is a lot of things out there that trigger the asthma, pollen ect.. I guess with the 3 dog's he is thinking the animal dander that is in the house. Plus they go outside and bring stuff back in the house just like we do. My family seems to think with adding a 3rd dog a few months ago was to much for her. Very well could be=( We all know this type of dog can't stay outside. We all love our doodles very much and this is so HARD. Is there anyone else on here that is dealing with this?? What to do about all the dog's? Do we rehome one and see what happens from there?? This is a sad week for us all... I'm not thinking very clear yet to much to handle!

[Maryann,Roo and Tigger]

Oh my gosh! I am so sorry. My daughter had asthma as a child. It was soooo scary!!! She is 37 and it has been 15 or more years since she had a serious attack. Still has allergies, though.

. Allergies and asthma are not exactly alike and the dogs may not be the trigger at all for the asthma attack. We live in Southern California and air quality is a big factor in children's asthma symtoms here. Allergies tend to be more straight forward (although not always) and asthma often has many factors that enter into a serious attack like your daughters. No amount of internet research on your part is a substitute for a knowledgeable doctor.

The first thing I would do is talk to your child's pediatrician. Unless your daughter tests positive to dog dander getting rid of the dogs is going to be needless heartbreak. Your own peditrician can help you to find a really knowledgeable, highly recommended pediatric allergist and/or pulmonologist if necessary. There many helpful asthma medicines and inhalers.

Both as a child and as an adult my daughter's asthma and allergies symptoms are highly increased by stress. You would not think this was much help to know, but actually it has helped a lot. Asthma attacks are also extremely frightening to most children and knowing what to do and that help is available can help some.
If your daughter is really attached to one or more of the dogs it would be very stressful for her to have them leave because of her. I think the blanket no dogs or cats in the house is premature and not thoughtful.
If worst comes to worst I don't think you will have any trouble adopting out your doodles to good homes, but hopefully it will not come to that!