Scotson Fold Pet Care Centre is a fully licensed boarding facility. Our licence is provided by Bury Council and we are inspected twice yearly to ensure that high standards are maintained and strict regulations adhered to. Our licence stipulates that we may only accept fully vaccinated pets. Licence compliant vaccinations are as follows:

Information on Kennel (Canine) Cough

Canine cough, often improperly referred to as ‘kennel cough’ is a highly contagious, airborne, upper respiratory disease. The main symptom is a hacking cough, sometimes accompanied by sneezing, nasal discharge and glassy/watery eyes. A dog may catch canine cough but not show symptoms for between 3 to 10 days. The canine cough is very similar in nature to the common cold in humans.

As with the common cold, there is no cure but must run its course. Although the cough does not normally develop into anything worse, the dog’s immune system may be lowered and so the infected dog should be closely monitored as may be susceptible to secondary infections. Your local veterinary surgeon can prescribe antibiotics to help prevent any secondary infections but these medications do not attack the virus itself. The virus can be caught anywhere as it is airborne, can travel for considerable distances and can even affect a dog that never leaves it’s own back yard! But tracheobronchitis is more likely to occur when the concentration of dogs is greater such as in the local park, at training classes, the vet’s waiting room or at a boarding kennel.

There is a vaccine for kennel cough but as with any vaccine, it does not offer 100% protection and so there is no guarantee your dog will not contract a cough. There are many strains of kennel cough, the vaccine protects against just a few of these. The kennel cough vaccine is administered separately to your dog’s standard annual booster. A few droplets of the live vaccine are administered up the nose of your dog and will give some protection against kennel cough. The kennel cough vaccine is not a compulsory vaccination at Scotson Fold Pet Care Centre (as per Local Authority Licence) although other boarding establishments may insist on it. It is the dog owner’s choice whether or not to have this vaccine administered to their dog. We do however have one strict rule with this vaccine which is, any dog that has this vaccine must have it administered at least 21 days prior to boarding, otherwise entry will be refused. This live vaccine can be shed for up to 3 weeks after administration therefore posing a threat to any other dog within close vicinity. From years of experience of running a boarding kennels we have found that a dog that has had the kennel cough vaccine can sometimes display symptoms of kennel cough and it can even mutate into the actual cough and so potentially this dog is contagious. For all the above reasons, for the welfare of all our canine guests we have our 21 day rule. Your veterinary surgeon may say that your pet is fine to go into kennel just a few days after administration but we have found this is often misinterpreted. Your pet will have some protection against kennel cough after a matter of days (even hours) and so therefore in this respect it is safe for your pet to board in a kennel facility but it is not safe for other canine guests within that facility.

There are various information sheets available about canine cough from either our office or from your local veterinary surgeon. Please feel free to discuss the matter further with your veterinary surgeon, (s)he will be in the best position to advise you of any queries.