“My puppy has kennel cough!” the voice of our new client on the phone exclaimed accusingly. “You made me show my vaccination certificate, but obviously you didn’t do the same with everyone. Otherwise this couldn’t have happened!”
There was so much wrong information in those statements, it could have appeared in Weekly World News along the Bigfoot and Elvis sightings.
Okay, that’s unfair.
The assumptions that our pet resort client had made were perfectly reasonable, if you didn’t know the facts. After all, kennels require vaccinations against Bordetella bronchiseptica (Bordetella or kennel cough). Why would they do that if the vaccines are not 100% effective?
Vets cheerfully administer them, often without any cautions or caveats. Or more likely, cautions and caveats go unheeded because – vaccine. Prevention right? (At least among the people who respect science and tune out the conspiracy theorists for whom the word ‘vaccine’ equals ‘a witch’s brew of toxic chemicals’ designed by evil practitioners of the Black Arts.)
Our client accepted the clarification I gave her concerning Bordetella and the Bordetella vaccine, and her puppy came back and boarded with us many times until his death at a ripe old age.
My initial experience with kennel cough was when I boarded my beloved Toby for the first time. He came home hacking and gagging as if trying to cough up a hairball.
This example is courtesy of our cats. In fact one of the symptoms of Bordetella is that the dry, honking cough doesn’t produce anything.
Our vet diagnosed it as kennel cough, which causes inflammation in the larynx and trachea.
This is not to be mistaken for the reverse sneezing some breeds like Beagles seem to be particularly prone to, that makes them sound like they are choking.
Without laboratory tests though, a vet cannot be absolutely certain that the dog who presents with respiratory symptoms has kennel cough. It could be any number of respiratory diseases.
Kennel cough tends to be the default diagnosis if the dog has just come back from the – you know, kennel. We’ve had clients whose dogs were perfectly happy and even enthusiastic to be at the pet resort, call us and tell us that not only did their dog (who showed no symptoms whatsoever while with us) contract kennel cough because of his stay at the pet resort, he did so because he was ‘stressed’. This according to their vet, who knew nothing whatsoever about our facility or how the dogs were – or were not – stressed there.
Stress is cited as a factor in contracting Bordetella because stress has an adverse effect on the immune system. A weakened immune system makes it easier for any living thing, canine, feline or human, to contract any disease. Kennels must cause stress (the logic goes), therefore, whatever bad happens to a dog within any length of time after having been kennelled is caused by kennel stress. Q.E.D.
Let’s look at the facts, shall we?
The first thing to understand is that there are numerous viruses and bacteria that cause upper respiratory disease in dogs.
In addition to Bordetella (which is a bacteria), canine reovirus, adenovirus, corona virus, canine herpes, canine influenza and even distemper can affect a dog’s respiratory system. About as often as not, when a dog shows symptoms of a respiratory illness, more than one of these viruses and bacterias will be present.
This was demonstrated in a 2014 study carried out on German dogs, published in the Veterinary Journal. It began by pointing out that the role of viral and bacterial components as primary or secondary pathogens in Canine Infectious Respiratory Disease (CIRD) is not fully understood.
The study looked at a number of viruses and bacteria to try to determine what exactly was causing CIRD in the infected dogs in the study.
Although Bordetella was present in 78.7% of CIRD infected dogs, more than one virus or bacteria were detected in 47.9% of the dogs with Bordetella. In other words, most dogs infected by Bordetella are also infected by another respiratory virus or bacteria.
The real shocker perhaps was that the Bordetella bacteria was present in 45.6% of healthy dogs, who showed no symptoms of respiratory disease.
The study concluded that “….clinically healthy dogs can carry respiratory pathogens and could act as sources of infection for susceptible dogs.”
Once a sick dog is well again, they will still shed the pathogen for as much as six weeks after recovery. Some authorities say fourteen weeks. Dogs who had been nasally vaccinated and then exposed to the bacteria four weeks later, still shed pathogens for about three weeks after the exposure.
This leads to the second thing that it is important to bear in mind with respect to Bordetella: dogs can be carriers, but be asymptomatic.
Once in a while we would get a call from someone whose dog had returned home after a stay with us. They would tell us their dog had kennel cough, must have picked it up in the kennel and we should look around for other dogs we were boarding, who were coughing.
Nope. On only a handful of occasions during our sixteen years in the pet resort, did dogs start to cough while staying with us. Yet we had perhaps a dozen calls claiming a dog had picked up kennel cough from our pet resort.
They might have done. We might well have been boarding fully vaccinated dogs who were carrying Bordetella and shedding the pathogen with absolutely no clues to alert us to the fact that was happening.
“Who’s a little disease carrier then?”
The vaccination itself will cause vaccinated dogs to shed pathogens for about three days after being vaccinated.
But at least once your dog is vaccinated, the risk must be over for her, right? Even if she comes in contact with a dog who carries the disease, it won’t be able to infect her, because that is what vaccines are for.
Sadly, the third thing you need to know about Bordetella is that the vaccine is not totally effective.
Some might argue that it is not even on the same continent as “totally effective”. The 2014 study cited above showed that 43.3% of the dogs in the study who acquired respiratory illness had been vaccinated. That’s nearly half.
Think about it like the annual flu vaccinations we humans are encouraged to get. Those shots do not protect us against the dozens of varieties of flu rampaging around out there. Public health officials decide which is variety of flu is most common that season and the most likely to do us harm, and reach a consensus on which strain we should be vaccinated against.
Same with Bordetella. The Bordetella vaccine protects against some, but not all strains of kennel cough.
The one and only time we got alarmed over Bordetella in the pet resort was one summer when we seemed to under a curse, plagued by multiple cases of coughing dogs. One case became two, and then three and four. We would go a week with no dogs coughing, then someone else would start up. We actually went so far as to contact all of our clients and alert them to the fact that there was Bordetella in the pet resort, so they could make other arrangements if they wished.
In fact, we knew that every other kennel in the area had even bigger problems than we did. One closed for a month to try to get rid of it. That was well intentioned, but probably useless, as all it would take would be for one vaccinated, asymptomatic carrier to come to board when they re-opened, and it could all start up again.
One of our clients who was a vet told us that she was seeing a really abnormally high number of cases, most of which had been traced back to a local dog park. She was advising her clients to stay away from there.
This outbreak, she told us, seemed to be caused by a new and unusually virulent strain of Bordetella which was spreading through the area, and indeed the province, like wildfire. The Veterinary College had even issued some bulletins about it.
However, don’t get the idea that dogs were dropping like medieval peasants during the Black Death.
Happily, the fourth thing you should know about kennel cough is that, with the exception of very young and very old dogs and those with suppressed immune systems, Bordetella is more of a nuisance than a mortal threat.
So don’t get hysterical people, if your dog comes back from the kennel or the groomer or the dog park and starts hacking like a child with whooping cough. In the majority of cases, the symptoms will pass in about three weeks – without treatment.
There are usually no other symptoms than the annoying cough. In a minority of cases, your dog may also have a runny nose or eyes. Walk Fido on a harness to take the pressure off his throat, and keep him away from other dogs for about six weeks, so he doesn’t pass it on.
If you take your dog to the vet when all he has is a persistent dry cough, the chances are pretty good the vet will put him on antibiotics, because like a lot of human doctors, it is difficult to resist the pressure to
when confronted by a worried client. We are hearing more and more about the dangers of overprescribing antibiotics for people. Don’t let’s go down that road with dogs too.
Because Bordetella so often appears in conjunction with another respiratory virus or bacteria, if the symptoms persist for more than three weeks, or your dog shows other signs of illness like a wet cough, rapid breathing, loss of appetite or lethargy, DO consult your vet.
Serious cases with a secondary infection can develop into pneumonia. Again, be especially watchful if you have a very young puppy, older dog or a dog with a weak immune system. They are particularly susceptible.
A misconception about kennel cough is that it is caused by lack of hygiene. Dirty kennels will have a high incidence of kennel cough this theory goes. That’s why it’s called kennel cough after all.
In fact, no. Dirt is not the culprit. Bordetella is an airborne bacteria. It is carried in droplets of the saliva of an infected dog. They sneeze and the liquid gets into the mouth of a dog nearby. They touch noses with another dog, or slobber on her and the bacteria travels along with the drool.
While it can be spread through communal water dishes or toys, and these should definitely be kept clean, in general, your kennel can have floors that are sterile enough to eat from and still have Bordetella floating around.
Ask if your kennel uses an air exchanger. Good ventilation is a far better indicator of a bordetella free environment than cleanliness. In fact I would say that our clients’ chance of having their dogs pick up Bordetella at our premises was less than at their groomers’. We had a state of the art air exchanger and twenty foot tall ceilings which allowed a huge volume of air to circulate.
Not that I’m sensitive about having run a kennel and this disease being called ‘kennel cough’. No. Not at all.
The fifth thing to know about kennel cough is that it can be, and often is, picked up outside of kennels. It’s possible to be get it anywhere that dogs congregate.
It comes as a shock to some people to find out that dog parks are an especially fertile breeding ground for Bordetella. After all, they are not enclosed grimy kennels! There’s lot of fresh air.
But the dog are mouthing each other and playing with balls and toys that have been in the mouths of other dogs. So particulates are being spread through contact.
It can also be picked up at training classes and at the groomer. Anywhere really if even two dogs are making contact and one of them is a carrier.
One of our clients called to say her dog had developed kennel cough and said she was just calling to let us know that the dog must have contracted it at our place. I was skeptical. The dog had started coughing more than two weeks after she got home. Signs of infection generally manifest within four to ten days.
Later, another dog came in to board and his owner happened to mention that he had had kennel cough a while back. We knew that this was a neighbour of, and great friends with the dog whose owner had called about kennel cough. We worked out the time line and it seemed pretty clear that the dog who first boarded with us had almost certainly picked up Bordetella from her friend, not while she was with us.
If the vaccines are only effective about 55% of the time, and Bordetella is not that serious an illness for most dogs, why even have the vaccination?
An excellent question, because to my mind, the answer is not all that obvious.
It seems to me that once the vaccination became available, people started to expect, even demand, that kennels and groomers would require that all dogs coming into their premises have the vaccination. This stemmed from some sort of confused idea that having all the dogs vaccinated would protect their own vaccinated dog from getting Bordetella.
This is not logical of course. You get your dog vaccinated to protect him from the pathogen. Whether others are or not vaccinated doesn’t affect your own dog’s immunity.
In theory, if the vaccine was as effective as say, the measles or smallpox vaccine for children, your vaccinated dog could be in contact with dozens of other unvaccinated dogs, all shedding pathogens like mad and it wouldn’t matter because he would be protected.
From a purely practical point of view, if you are going to board your dog, or even have him groomed, chances are very good that the kennel or groomer will require you to show proof of this vaccination.
They may not want to impose this on clients who would prefer to skip this vaccination. Once we knew the facts, we would have been quite happy to leave the decision to vaccinate for Bordetella to the owners.
But inevitably, when someone called to complain their dog had picked up kennel cough at our place, the first question out of their mouths would be “Did you accept a dog without seeing proof of vaccination against Bordetella?”
It’s a vicious circle, but the expectations of the public did not bow to logic or facts.
The vaccine can be administered by mouth, nasally or injected. Nasal vaccines give protection within 72 hours.The other methods take about ten to fourteen days to become effective and require boosters two to four weeks apart. Some vets do a nasal administration for quick immunity, followed by an injection for “stronger immune memory”. There seems to be no science to back this up.
As to frequency, when we started vaccinate our own dogs for Bordetella, the recommendation was to give it annually. Towards the end of our career in the pet boarding business, some kennels started requiring it every six months. I am now reading that this six month re-up is more or less standard practice, even though, again, I can find no science that supports the utility of doing this.
The vaccine seems to be reasonably safe, although a small proportion of vaccinated dogs can actually show signs of kennel cough for a few days after being vaccinated.
Should you vaccinate other than for boarding or grooming requirements?
If your dog is around other dogs, you may decide it’s worthwhile doing it for whatever level of protection it provides, even if they are not to be boarded or professionally groomed.
I’ll leave you with this thought:
Cats also get Bordetella. We have boarded our cats many times in many different kennels. Yet I have never seen a suggestion that they should be vaccinated for Bordetella, even though such a vaccine exists for cats.
Is it because catteries are cleaner than doggeries? Is it because cats are more fastidious and less likely to share body fluids with their neighbours?
I suggest it’s most likely because the demand that residents of catteries be vaccinated against Bordetella has not yet reached critical mass in the public consciousness.
Consult you vet for her or his views, and make up your own mind about whether to vaccinate your dog. Just do it rationally, on the basis of the facts.
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