I have a young male Lab who is almost 3 years old. He's always been a heavy panter and if he continues to exercise, he'll develop a "harky" sound to the pant. He's a pretty energetic boy and at times appears to develop anxiety. This is always been fairly normal for him.

What isn't normal is in the past 10 days he's had two episodes that resulted in difficulty breathing. The first was when he was waiting in my car, in the shade, windows partly open on a less than 70 degree day. He was also with another dog who was fine the entire time. I returned to my car and this male was panting heavily. The harking sound was now a high pitched wheezing sound. I immediately removed him from my car. As I was taking him out, he vomited. After that, he laid down on the ground. I offered him water and he drank some. He was becoming a bit cyanotic so I put him in my car and took him to my vet. They put him on oxygen, sedated him a little, put in an IV and cooled him down. He had a temp of 105. The vet I saw was a new vet and really didn't have much of clue other than to say she thought it might be LP, but did no tests on him at that time.

A few days ago, while on an evening walk, it was about 65 degrees and overcast. We walked our normal walk and he panted heavily and harked as usual. What wasn't usual was about a mile and half into our walk, he started wanting to lay down. I let him lay down and catch his breath for a few minutes and then would start again as we were still 1/2 mile from home. Then he started vomiting. He vomited about 3 times on the walk. He finally laid down and didn't want to get up. I had to call for a ride home. I took him home and cooled him down. I gave him ice cubes and small amounts of water. He vomited at least 6 more times. He finally recovered about an hour later and then slept for several more hours. When he would get up at first he seemed to be a little unsteady on his feet and staggered a little.

He appears normal again and I don't dare walk him any more. He's OFA hips/elbows normal and both his parents are EIC clear. I watched a video of a dog with LP on YouTube and the breathing did not appear the same as my boy's.

I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences like this before?

Thanks in advance.

Your dog may have an elongated soft palate which can cause a dog to exhibit symptoms similar to what you are describing. Exercise aggravates the condition and they are usually loud snorers too. It is repairable and the dogs lead full and active lifestyles once done. Good luck!!

Your dogs symptoms kind of match both laryngeal paralysis, and cardiomyopathy. Both have symptomatic cough and exercise/stress intolerance. I am not a vet, but if this were my dog I would spend the money for both a color echo doppler of the heart and an x-ray of the throat and larynx. I hope you get an answer that will give your boy a good quality of life as these are not normal symptoms.

LP usually begins at older ages, not at age 3.

I would look into other illnesses besides LP as it's highly uncommon to see it at age 3. My Lab began at over age 10 but it can begin at age 8 or 9.

I hope you find out what the problem is and it isn't serious. A radiograph of his lungs and an echo doppler of his heart might be in order. I would discuss those and other testing with your vet.

Thank you for your advise so far. After the first episode, I had asked the attending vet about it being an elongated soft palate and she felt it could also be LP although he's pretty young for that. She really was of no help other than she knew what to do to help him get cooled down. I am now consulting with my regular vet who I really trust.

I will be taking him in later this week and he will be put under anesthesia. I'm sure they'll check him over well and can tell what it is while he's under.

I'm hoping that by keeping him quieter that we can control the problem, but more than likely he'll have to under go surgery at some point. He will be neutered at that time. Thankfully he hasn't sired a litter.

Please let us know what you find out. Have never heard of this. I have only known LP in older dogs.
Have had that, but this sounds different. Concerned with you.

We had a girl with LP many years ago and ended up letting her go at 13 or so. She had a couple of severe episodes of lack of oxygen and we decided not to do surgery.

We now have 2 older ones with the condition, but not advanced.

None of the three ever vomited from the LP (that I know of).

I had an older female who had the symptoms you described.
She had laryngeal paralysis but she had also (unknown to us) developed a tumor on her thyroid that was pressing on her throat. The tumor also caused her to be hyperthyroid.

We discovered her problems when she developed heat exhaustion on a 70 degree day after a short walk. Being hyperthyroid caused the heat exhaustion. The difficulty breathing was related to her laryngeal paralysis.

She died about a year later after a lot of chemotherapy for her cancer and surgery for her laryngeal paralysis (which actually helped her a great deal).

Although most dogs diagnosed with LP are older it can be seen in younger dogs as well. I have known of dogs 2-4 years that have been hit with it. There are several breeds that have a congenital form that is part of an over all polyneuropathy. I have seen pups as young as 3 months with symptoms. That being said, Labs do not fall within this group of breeds and usually develop LP later in life. The vomiting is not a common symptom of LP so that is something that could use some more investigation. You are on the right track with your plans to have your dog put under a light anesthesia as this is the only way LP can be definitively diagnosed. While the dog is under the vet can watch both sides of the larynx to make sure that they are working correctly.

I would certainly rule out a heart condition via color doppler echo before I put him under anesthesia, I would also get a chest x ray. If he has a heart condition and/or lung condition, he may not survive anesthesia.