How to Treat a Dog With a Cold

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about treating a dog with a cold. Cold is a very non specific term. And humans, we think of colds as being anything from the flu to just upper respiratory viruses alone, and in essentially it's the same with a dog. If you're dealing with a cold, what we have in a dog is going to be generally an upper respiratory infection, a lower respiratory infection, something like that. Just feeling kind of bad. A lot of these in dogs are viral and/or bacterial. And so the first thing to do is to identify if your dog is sick and we've talked about looking at your dog as far as lethargy is concerned, not eating very well, sneezing, coughing, anything like that would indicate that your pet needs to go to your veterinary office so they can diagnose your pet with a cold. As far as treating a pet with a cold, we commonly use antihistamines, we commonly use antibiotics since a lot of these things can become infections. And generally the other thing on pets, especially dogs, is supportive care because a lot of animals when they have a cold or any kind of illness are not feeling very well. They're going to be off of their food or water. So good supportive care at home is the best thing you can do."