# Distemper or URI?



## klelliott2008 (Feb 21, 2008)

My husband and I just adopted an 8 month old boxer from the SPCA last week. She's affectionate, sweet, and very intelligent. We were told she would probably develop kennel cough within a week by our vet. My husband works for our vet which makes things easy. So we were prepared for a cough. She began to develop a bit of a cough along with gagging or I guess they call it retching? She's been throwing up white foamy stuff, her eyes have been discharging icky ****, her nose has been runny with green, and her breathing has been short and labored (most of this occurred Sun. afternoon). We kept her overnight @ the vet the last two nights (sun & mon). The Doc said b/c of the green stuff in her nose that he thinks it may be distemper but he hasn't dealt with it in a long time. We've read so much stuff on the internet and it seems that symptoms for many illnesses (kennel cough, URI, distemper, etc.) overlap. They did blood work and gave her antibiotics. My husband said she hasn't been coughing and her breathing is better and she's still eating. We're still worried though. We've grown so attached in such a short time. Do we just wait it out? Is there a surefire way to know EXACTLY what she has? If you have any ideas, please let me know.


----------



## briteday (Feb 10, 2007)

Your pup could be infected with more than one virus/bacteria/parasite. It will take the veta while to "tease apart" the symptoms. In the meanwhile I'm guessing they are treating the symptoms as most respond to just about he same thing.

Something you can do is to call the SPCA and see if any of their other animals are displaying symptoms (these things are highly contagious) and if they have any info from when the dog came to them if it was recently. They will also want to know that your dog is sick so they can watch for signs in the other animals that were housed near yours.


----------



## Inga (Jun 16, 2007)

AW! Poor baby. What a way to start out her life. Luckily she now has you and you can spend the next many years loving her up and giving her all the love she could hope for. I hope you will post some pictures of her for us to Ooh and AAh over. I am glad she is on the road to recovery. It sure is not fun being sick or watching your loved ones being sick.


----------



## klelliott2008 (Feb 21, 2008)

Just an update since this morning:

Cheyanne, our boxer seemed to be doing very well this morning when my husband got to work. She didn't have any eye ****, she hadn't thrown up or been coughing. Her breathing was back to normal and she was just happy to see him, butt wagging back and forth and all. Hopefully Doc can send her home today with antibiotics. 

Still not sure what the exact diagnosis is...but I suspect it was just a sever case of kennel cough. 

Thanks! I'll keep ya posted.


----------



## michelleal (Jul 19, 2008)

This site might help you. They got informations on dog distemper symptoms and other related type of dog symptoms also.


----------



## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

Please don't rely on any website to diagnose canine or human illnesses.


----------

