Not sure about diagnosis - Colitis?

[theeternalstudent]

My little hound dog mix is 10 years old. She is going blind due to a genetic condition and has been diagnosed with colitis. She has been retching, but not being sick, on and off for some weeks now. It sounds a bit like a goose honk. Vet diagnosed colitis and has put her on a low fat diet. She seems a little bit better and isn't retching as much, but is still doing so every now and again.

A bit of googling (I know!) suggested kennel cough but she is up to date with her vaccinations or twisted gut but she doesn't have the hard tummy that goes with that. I just don't feel like colitis is the right diagnosis but I don't know what!!

Any ideas what it might be and how I can help her? She is such a good girl, she never complains. TIA

It does sound like kennel cough and being vaccinated does not mean you can't still get it there are loads of different strains. My terrier x is very susceptible and gets KC regularly despite being vaccinated .

Did the vet get to hear the retching? My understanding is that kind of honking cough can indicate heart and airway problems as well as infection, but I am not a vet. Hopefully one will be along soon!

Does sound like it might possibly be KC to me. As Floralnomad said, the vaccination only covers a few of the many strains. It's been going on for a long time for KC though, although some strains may need antibiotics (both of my two had KC a couple of months back and needed antibiotics and the older of the two was up to date with his KC vaccination) so that might have a bearing.

Afaik colitis is bowel related, so not sure how that reconciles with retching. My old Wheaten Terrier girl had colitis and it was always loose mucousy stools, that were sometimes bloody and intermittent diarrhoea - she never retched or vomited. No mention of retching here.

The other thing I would want to check for is foreign body in the throat. We had a dog that had chewed a stick (we don't let our dogs have sticks, but she found it in the garden after a storm) and splinters had travelled through her oesophagus into her neck and caused a really bad infection that spread in pockets. We nearly lost her to it actually, as due to her heavy neck rough there were no outward signs, so we didn't know until she was really ill. First sign of trouble was retching without being sick - I presume when she had the splinters actually in the oesophagus.

Is there another vet you can go to for a second opinion?

hmmm, time to go back to the vet. It's quite a big practice and we never get the same vet twice which right now sounds like a good thing. I'll take her back and see what they say.

Thank for the advice. I knew that colitis just didn't sound right. Should trust my instincts more.

GirlDog has been diagnosed with colitis. She gets very bad guts with stress and any change (so if we have guests over, for example). She occasionally does the honking cough thing too, which we were very concerned about when someone posted on our community Facebook page that their lab had kennel cough. She was kept in the vets overnight after one particularly bad episode so the nurses heard the honk, I asked what they thought and they said it was most likely to be just retching as she only did it a couple of hours after food when she had nothing left in her belly to vomit up. She never does it when she's recently eaten and then it's only once or twice, then nothing for a few days. Added to the fact that BoyDog has never done it and KC is so contagious, we've accepted what they've said. She's had 3 different types of full blood screening done, with tests on her vomit and poo, and nothing untoward has been found.

FWIW I have very little doggy knowledge, but for us (dalmatian, btw) colitis has been mucusy stools in stressful/different to the norm situations, and very stressful situations have had lots of vomit (sometimes foamy) too. She maybe vomits a little bit, even if it's just bringing up water, every other day, and her rear end is not good eating anything other than plain chicken breasts or the veterinary gastro food. anything else and she's mucusy. She's also an older dog too. That's probably not relevant though.