Hi all, looking for some advice/others experiences please.
Our 12 year old chihuahua has had symptoms from his heart murmur for a couple of years now, slowly worsening cough, and recently his heart beat is loud and he pants more.
He’s fine about 70% of the time, still goes on short walks, still wants to play, and still follows me around constantly, dashing up and down stairs, even though it can make him cough. But overall things are getting worse.
However, he coughs mostly when excited. When he first wakes up, when we come home from being out without him, when he barks at the postman, etc. rather than just coughing generally. I understand this could be more of a trachea thing? He also coughs when he poos, and now does high pitched little farts when he coughs! It is quite a honking cough, so I’m wondering if it’s trachea collapse as well? Get hasn’t mentioned this as a possibility even though he has regular check ups.
He’s on Vetmedin morning and evening, Furosemide morning and evening, and Cardalis in the evening. He takes them 80% of the time but sometimes refuses the morning ones.
It is such a worry with his struggles, not least because he is my 16 year old daughter’s unofficial support dog through her complex neurodiverse troubles. She is occasionally on her own with him, and I’m very worried that he could have a sudden episode and die when it’s only her with him. The vet said this is unlikely, usually the decline is evident over a few days and then you have to make the decision, rather than waiting for things to get worse. I hate to think of him dying coughing. And if my daughter was on her own with him, I cannot bear to imagine what that would do to her. Generally it’s nowhere near that stage yet, but I don’t know how quickly it can progress.
I will take him back to the vets, but just wanted to get a broader opinion and your experiences and thoughts on all of this. Many thanks.