Kennel cough / liquid medication

[dizzyupthegirl86]

My dog started coughing yesterday at an alarming rate, bringing up white foam and just generally being a bit scary. I took her to the vet who was pretty adamant it was kennel cough.
She’s vaccinated, but I know it doesn’t get all strains, and the only place she’s been around dogs in the last week is the vets last week!

She’s been on antibiotics for a wound that got infected, finished about a week ago, so the vet is reluctant to give her more just yet so has given me a liquid medicine for her - asbrip.

I’ve got to give this to her twice a day, but it’s just…. Impossible. She growls and tries to get away, I had her in her harness last night and she wriggled out of it. I managed to give it to her but I think it’s coz she wasn’t 100% wise to it. This morning, I’ve got about 2 of the 5mls in her and it’s taken a good half an hour, her snapping and barking and being upset and going to her hiding place under my desk.

Does anyone have any tips how I can give her this medicine please? It’s upsetting her, she strains against her harness and the barking can’t be good for her throat, and she basically coughs it all up afterwards anyway. It’s only me here so I can’t ask someone to hold her while I administer. The vet said it’s better to give it to her direct rather than in food because it’ll soothe her throat, but I even tried a bit on some of her food and she instantly just turned away and left it, won’t touch it.
I don’t think it’s just her being scared, the stuff smells UNHOLY.

Do you have a syringe like the sort you get with children's medicines? That might make it easier to get it into her mouth. Maybe smear the syringe with marmite so it smells nice.

Yes, it came with the medicine. I’ve tried to get her used to the syringe itself by letting her sniff it and filling it with water and seeing if she’ll take that. I’ll try the marmite tip later, thank you! She’ll normally eat anything with peanut butter on and that’s not worked this morning either!

Good luck! I hope it works and she feels better soon.

Mix it into some food tuna always works for us

Oh tuna is a really good shout! She likes fish and it won’t be too sore for her throat. Though at the minute she’s coughing up everywhere after eating, so not sure my carpets will be in great condition after!

It’s meant to be liver flavoured but it’s also got mint and eucalyptus apparently. What a combo, no wonder she doesn’t want it.

My dog always takes medicine off a spoon but he’s great with cutlery , you could try mixing it with a nice flavoured yoghurt or some tinned salmon .

Just a little update - she didn’t take the medication off a spoon, but she’d take water from the syringe after a bit of practise. I had to go out for a couple of hours so didn’t want to try her with fish before then.

It worked a treat though - I gave her a sardine fillet from a tin, broken up and covered in 5ml of this syrup, thinking it would be too overpowering, but she wolfed it down! Same again this morning. It’s really seemed to help too, she doesn’t have mad coughing fits for a couple of hours after. She still gets them when she wakes up (quite bad, it scares her) and when she’s done something exerting, like coming downstairs or going out for a wee.

We’re having a duvet day today, I’m hoping she can just get lots of rest, though it’s a lovely day outside and ordinarily we’d have been out for a walk by now!

That's great to hear and I'm glad you found something that worked in the end

That’s great , hope she gets well soon