Excessive Panting!?

[Chelsea and Bailey]

Alright DK friends, I've been wanting to post this for weeks but have been holding off because I didn't want to seem over-reactive but now I'm alittle worried! I would like advice on what kind of panting is normal for a dog? I have not owned a big dog before, so I thought that maybe they pant mor than little dogs? Bailey pants normally after all excercise and settles down within the 10 minute time frame, but then sometimes at rest she pants like a maniac! This morning is the perfect example, she came into bed with me after my DH left and stays on the bed but she literally woke me up with her hard panting, its so loud and so fast. I even tried to count her respiratory rate and couldn't. She will rest a bit and then pant, over and over. Right now she is laying down breathing throught her nose quick, seems like too quick, I'm used to people breathing 12-20 breaths per minute whereas she is probably close to 60 or higher at times. So anyways I googled heavy panting at rest and it brought me cushings disease, renal failure, heart failure, hypothyroidism. Scared me to death! I know panting is used to regulate body heat, so maybe she just gets hot randomly? She doesn't have any of the other symptoms those diseases state like wt gain, hair loss, or high temperature,plus she's only 6 months old, so I'm looking for advice as to what you guys think! Is this norma, do I need to just get used to the panting cycles?l?

[Donna K & Quincy]

Quincy only dials random numbers his paws are very clumsy on the keypad.

[Michele, Biscuit & Mo]

Penny has always been a heavy, fast panter.  She's now six and even if she hasn't been moving around, she'll have an episode of panting.  I have noticed that it happens a) when she's on a rug or b) when she's in bed.  She's definitely one to get hot and I'm pretty sure that it's her reaction to cool off.  Do you notice it happening in locations other than bed?  Good luck - Bailey is a honey!

[Bridget B]

Thanks for bringing up this issue.  I've been worried about my 3 yr. old doodles breathing for a while.  Every once in a while he starts panting very hard for no apparent reason.  I'm comforted to know that this is pretty common behavior.   

[Heather & Brinkley]

Brinkley does this too.  He pants like crazy!  I notice when he's on our bed for awhile.  He'll eventually get off and cool down and it will stop. When he's run hard it will take him awhile to cool down and the panting is crazy hard and loud.

[Nicole]

I have had two labradoodles, both who pant a LOT and seem to be very hot-natured. They drink lots of water, and especially when they lay on carpet or on the bed it is more pronounced. I just had Coco cut really short because when the weather hit around 70 she started panting a lot more. She didn't do it so much during the winter. I, too, think they are just hot. She likes to sleep on the cool tile or wood floor rather than in our bedroom.

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

I'm glad you started this discussion.  As a small puppy, Finnegan would fall asleep and breathe so rapidly I took him to the vet.  I never saw anything breathe that fast at rest.  But the vet examined him and said he was fine.  He also pants a lot --especially at night when he gets the zoomies.  I've read that a dog can pant when they're hot, stressed, anxious, or excited.  I think his panting is anxiousness and excitement.  He's like a little kid who doesn't want to go to bed. When he gets a lot of exercise during the day we don't have the panting episodes at night.  But I still worry sometimes that something is wrong.

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

I too believe it's from being hot, Myla does that a lot and she has heavy thick hair compared to Chloe. Wouldn't hurt to call the vet and just ask. We have an animal hospital here open 24 hours and my husband always calls them for advice they are usually very helpful.

[Bonne Bouche]

I logged on in the middle of the night last night to check this out, and I'm glad to see I'm not hte only one.

 

BB woke me up panting so hard, I thought he was hyperventilating. He always seems to be hot, so I assume it was just that he was warm.  When we first got him, we had him in a medium sized plastic sided pet carier with a foam "bed" on the bottom. He was really bad with panting then, so we moved him to a larger metal crate. This seemed to remedy the problem for a bit. The last couple of nights he was panting a lot. He has an apt for his next shots a week from Monday. I'll bring this up to them then. I think he's just a hottie!

The cage has a metal bottom, so in the middle of the night I took him out for a sip of water, and removed the blanket we had on the bottom so he would lay on the cool bottom (mvoed blanket to the side, so he could cuddle if he wanted). This seemed to help. We'll see how ti goes. I was thinking about moving his cage outside our bedroom, as it tends to get a few degrees warmer in there over night than in the mainroom right outside our bedroom.  

 

[Kate]

I had a lab who used to wake up panting heavily and I always thought that maybe he'd just had a bad dream... or a good dream where he was running in the dog park. I have no idea whether this could actually be the cause of the heavy panting, but maybe?