Is kennel cough contagious to people?

Dr. Marie replied:

Aw, sorry to hear that Sugar Bear is having these problems.

First of all, you can rest assured that you will not get kennel cough from your dog. It is not contagious to people. Kennel cough can be caused by a number of different viruses and bacteria. One of these bacteria is something called Bordetella. There is some speculation that people will very depressed immune systems (such as people on intensive chemotherapy or HIV patients) could catch Bordetella from the dog, but this rarely happens.

Unfortunately, Clavamox will not protect your other dog from the virus. If your other dog gets kennel cough then the antibiotic may lessen some of the symptoms, but because this is a virus, an antibiotic is not going to prevent her from catching it. There really isn't much you can do at this point to prevent the other dog from getting the virus. I have seen many houses where one dog had kennel cough and the other dogs in the house did not get it, so hopefully that is the case in your house.

So the next question is to figure out if it is possible that he picked up the virus at the groomer's. The incubation period for kennel cough is usually 4-10 days. If Sugar Bear was groomed on Wednesday and it is now Friday, then it is unlikely that he picked up the virus at the groomers. This type of virus is spread through the air and can be picked up almost anywhere.

You can find some more information on kennel cough here:
Kennel cough in dogs.

I hope things look up soon!

Dr. Marie.


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Dr. Marie replied:

The ear infection would not be directly related to the kennel cough. However, there may be a possible connection. If this was a severe ear infection (which it sounds like it was), then Sugar Bear's immune system was likely struggling a little as it was trying to fight the ear infection. This may have made him less able to fight off the respiratory virus.

Dr. Marie replied:

It's often hard to know how long a dog with kennel cough is contagious for. In general I recommend that an infected dog stays away from other dogs for two weeks. The first week after infection is when he is the most contagious. You can read more information on how contagious kennel cough is by reading this part of the article on kennel cough.

How long he takes to feel better can really vary as well. In general, I find that most dogs feel really under the weather for just a couple of days and then make a gradual improvement. It can take several days to even several weeks for a complete recovery.