[mb1991]

Have a 12 year old boxer who other than arthritis in his hip seems to be healthy. Three days ago he began hacking. He takes short spells of hacking and like choking almost. Then he is fine. But last night he was almost constant and had fever this morning. Keeping an eye on fluid build up as sign of heart failure but none so far.

1- He is sleeping in the house near wood stove, could the dry heat be causing problems?
2- a cold?
3- complications or lung issues from skunk spray? He attacked a skunk little over week ago and got sprayed directly in face. It was bad enough he fell over and passed out for over a minut when happened. But showed no problems till 3 days ago.

Anyone with any ideas of suggestions? Info would be appreciated

 

[CBD]

Hey mb, I don't want to sound negative here or nothing, but I had a boxer that started that same thing not long before he died. He had cancer and I later found out that Boxers are very prone to getting cancer and only have a life-span average of seven years. Mine was seven when he died.

I'm not saying this is what is wrong with yours, and I sincerely hope it is not, just letting you know of my situation. Hope he gets better.

 

[BigRacksRbetter]

Boxers are very prone to cancer.. and yes sadly enough the coughing/hacking your talking about is pretty consistent with cancer.. my mom had one that did that and she didn't make it long after that either.. 12 yrs is a very long life for a boxer we had one lived almost 15 yrs but the last 4 or so were hard he was completely blind, deaf, and constant weight loss.. but i would take to vet to confirm but sounds as if may have cancer. Does it have a lil knot on it anywhere?

 

[kfarm]

My Son in law had a 7 year old, that stopped eating all of a sudden. They took him to the vet and Like above found cancer. Matt is a major in the army and has taken that dog every where with him. Putting him to sleep was harder on him than the news that he's going to Afghanistan at the end of the month.

 

[gunslinger66]

Have you had him checked for heart worms lately?

 

[mb1991]

Have you had him checked for heart worms lately?

yes we recently had him checked. The old guy does have heart worms. Apparently had them since the summer even though was on preventative. before being sprayed by the skunk he showed absolutely no signs of problems though. He has major lung infection due to the skunk spray and coupled with the heart worms he constantly hacks and coughs. Last week he was diagnosed as in heart failure, but the vet was not ready to say needed put him down. Put the dog on Lasix and continued antibiotic and steroid for major lung problems. I know all we are doing is prolonging the inevitable, but the dog still weighs 90 lbs and eating 4 cans of soft food a day. Before the lasix he had quit eating for two days and was not active at all. since he is still coughing alot, anytime he gets excited, but has started eating hard food again and is walking around and snooping around outside when he goes out to the bathroom.
He goes back the end of this week for a check up and decide what to do next.

As, long as he is still eating and alert, my mom is taking care of him and babying him like he is a king! - ( we had to put our other old 15 year old fiest/mountain curr down this past summer from major heart failure) so she just cant do it as long as the boxer seems happy and strong.

*still when he coughs very deeply, you can still smell the skunk spray coming from his lungs, and it has been well over a month since he got hold of it..

 

[gunslinger66]

I'm sure the skunk hjas a lot to do with it and possibly the heart worms too. The heart worms cs=ause some kinda cough in most dogs I have seen with them.

 

[BigRacksRbetter]

If the preventative didn't work they will pay for treatment.. one of my labs got em and they paid the bill and give me a years worth of preventative after he got the heartworms