When brought Sophie home, we gave her a baby-wipe bath (she couldn’t have a real bath as she had recently been spayed) because she was so dirty from being at the animal shelter. As soon as we finished cleaning her up, she began sneezing. A couple of days later, after being licked about the mouth and face by Sophie, Wolfgang started showing symptoms of illness - low energy and clingy (our dogs tend to stick close to us and lean their heads on our shoulders or legs when they’re not feeling well), and a day after that he got a fever and stuffy nose.

In all the years we’ve had dogs and cats, we have never had one catch a cold before (we had a horse that did). We did some searching on the internet about dogs getting colds. Many people are of the opinion that dogs don’t get colds like humans do, but it turns out they do, and small dogs especially are prone to cold and easily fall ill and sometimes die from it.

Madoline made a sweatshirt for Sophie to help keep her warm and we kept her in her crate to keep from getting Ludwig sick, too. Her cold didn’t seem too bad; she slept a lot, sometimes sneezed, but didn’t seem to have congestion problems. Wolfgang, however, couldn’t sleep the night his nasal congestion began because he couldn’t breath through his nose. When awake, he panted through his mouth. Every time he put his head down to try to sleep, he couldn’t breathe again. Madoline stayed up with him all night, and first thing the next morning we took them to the vet.

While Sophie didn’t seem to be doing badly, we thought it would be best to have her checked out just in case she had brought something more serious from the animal shelter. Because Ludwig was still fine, we just had Sophie and Wolfgang examined. The diagnosis was an upper respiratory infection and were prescribed antibiotics. The trip to the vet, a 80-mile roundtrip, ended up costing $140 for 2 examinations and antibiotics, and about $40 in mileage.

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We continued to try to keep Ludwig away from Wolfgang and Sophia, but the day after going to the vet, he started sneezing. And the day after that, he developed a fever and nasal congestion as well. But being more physically adaptable, he was able to breathe through his mouth while sleeping, and we decided not to take him to the vet. We try to avoid using antibiotics (for ourselves as well as our pets) as much as possible because while it is effective, it can have negative effects. We decided that as long as Ludwig could sleep, and as long as the cold didn’t get too serious, we would try to just let him get over it naturally.

All three dogs are fine now. Sophie, the instigator of all this trouble, seemed to have it the easiest, perhaps because of her small size. Poor Ludwig and Wolfgang are still walking around with drippy noses and snoring when they sleep.

Have you ever had a dog with nasal congestion? Well, it is messy. They sneeze just as humans do, but they can’t blow their noses. We can only try to wipe their noses for them, and wipe the … snot … off the floor, and our arms, and whatever else happens to be in front of them when they sneeze.

So, a little advice - Prevention is the Best Medicine (and Cheapest Cure):

• If you ever get a small dog, get him/her a few sweatshirts, even in the summer, because the air conditioning can make them cold. (Sophie sneezes whenever the A/C comes on, and we live in the desert where it’s 104 degrees outside and 82-83 in the house.) Even some long-haired toy dogs get cold.
• If you have more than one dog and one catches a cold, separate it from the others immediately. Try to limit activity and let him/her sleep as much as possible. And have the mop and Kleenex on standby.

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