Dog Breathing Hard: 30 Reasons Why and What to Do
It can be terrifying for a dog owner to watch their canine companion breathing hard and struggling to catch their breath.
It is especially stressful when it happens for unknown reasons.
So here are 30 potential reasons for a dog breathing hard, as well as details about each cause of this condition and what to do about it.
1. Acid-Based Disorders
For a dog’s organs to work properly, its blood must maintain a certain pH balance (or acidity level).
Various medical conditions can disrupt a dog’s pH balance, making their blood too acidic or alkaline.
One disorder that can affect a dog’s pH balance is metabolic acidosis, which occurs when the dog’s body produces too much acid and/or can’t remove it normally.
One of the first warning signs that your dog has an acid-based disorder will be hard/heavy breathing.
If you suspect an acid-based disorder is affecting your dog, you will need to take the pup to the vet.
Here you'll have a blood test performed, as a blood-gas analysis and chemistry panel are needed to determine if your dog has an acid-based disorder.
2. Age
As a dog ages, it naturally becomes more difficult for the dog to intake and absorb an adequate amount of oxygen into its lungs.
Even nonstrenuous movements and a little amount of walking can cause an older dog to pant and breathe harder than a younger, healthier dog.
3. Anemia
This condition causes a dramatic decrease in a dog’s red blood cells, which results in a reduced ability for these blood cells to carry oxygen to the dog’s lungs.
To compensate, the dog’s lungs must work harder, causing the dog to breathe hard. One sign of anemia in dogs is white or pale gums.
If you see signs of this condition in your dog, you should take the dog to an emergency vet clinic immediately.
Your dog may need a blood transfusion to give the vet time to determine and treat the causes of the dog’s anemia.
4. Anxiety / Stress
Dogs suffer from anxiety and stress, just like humans do. When a dog is anxious or stressed, it will go into “flight or fight” mode.
This results in a rush of cortisol and adrenaline to its system, which can cause rapid breathing.
A dog can show other signs of anxiety or stress. This includes trembling, cowering, hiding, ears back, tail tucked, lip licking, and pacing.
Or they avoid eye contact. These signs of stress can be reasons for the heavy breathing could be anxiety or stress.
Stress and anxiety that often occur and for extended periods of time can harm your dog physically and emotionally, shorten their lifespan, and negatively impact their quality of life overall.
Therefore, it is important that dog owners identify causes of stress and/or anxiety in their dogs and treat/eliminate these causes.
Licensed dog behaviorists and vets can assist a dog owner in treating canine anxiety and stress disorders.
5. Asthma
Dogs can also suffer from asthma. In the world of veterinary medicine, this condition is commonly called eosinophilic bronchopneumopathy.
Wheezing, rapid breathing, a persistent and severe cough, often followed by gagging or retching, are common signs that a dog has asthma.
The severity of asthma in dogs ranges from minor symptoms that appear occasionally and are non-life-threatening to severe, critical, and life-threatening symptoms.
If a dog suffers from a severe form of this condition, a vet will often prescribe an antimicrobial prescription, followed by a steroid prescription.
Pet owners who have dogs that suffer from this condition must remove all environmental allergenic triggers from their pet’s life.
Things such as cigarette smoke, aerosol deodorizers and perfumes, dusty areas, carpet, and any particulate matter in bedding.
6. Behavioral
Heavy or hard breathing in dogs can be a primary sign of fear-aggression-related behaviors.
If your dog has random occurrences of heavy breathing, watch out for other signs that the dog is scared of something or someone.
Signs such as cowering, ears back, tail tucked or pointed straight out, pacing, snarling, and any abnormal behavior.
Address the dog’s fear with a certified dog behaviorist and/or veterinarian to endure that the dog’s fear doesn’t become worse, which could cause the dog to become aggressive.
7. Canine Cognitive Disorder
This is the canine form of what is commonly known as dementia in humans.
This disorder can appear in older dogs, and one of the symptoms is the dog becoming confused, which seems to be especially bad at night.
The confusion can cause the dog to become distressed and therefore breathe hard.
If you suspect your dog might be suffering from a canine cognitive disorder, see a licensed veterinarian. Discuss how you can help your dog.
8. Collapsing Trachea (trachea/windpipe problems)
It occurs when a dog’s trachea (windpipe) isn’t hard enough, and therefore, collapses each time the dog takes a breath.
Small breeds of dogs such as Yorkshire terriers and poodles, and Chihuahuas are especially susceptible.
One treatment for this condition is having surgery, in which prosthetic support is placed around the dog’s trachea.
9. Cushing’s Syndrome
This disease, also called hyperadrenocorticism, occurs when a dog’s adrenal glands produce too much cortisol and cause an imbalance in a dog’s electrolytes, which will trigger panting and hard breathing.
If a dog is starving and/or thirsty, gaining weight, losing hair, has a change in its skin color from pink to grey or black, has a protruding belly (pot-belly), or is irritable or restless, take the dog to the vet.
Have a blood test performed to determine if this disease (or diabetes, which has similar symptoms) might be present in the dog.
Treatments will differ depending on the vet and severity of the illness but will often include surgery or adrenal suppressants.
10. Eclampsia / Milk Fever
This is a dangerous condition that only affects nursing mothers of puppies due to a sudden drop in blood calcium levels that causes heavy or hard breathing.
Panting in the mother dog, as well as tremors, weakness, and/or an inability to walk or stand can also be caused by this.
If these symptoms appear in a dog that is nursing, call your vet right away.
Some vets will make house calls, and in this situation, it would be best to have a licensed vet come to your home.
Taking the mother dog away from her puppies would likely cause her even more stress, and worsen her heavy breathing.
11. Excess Weight
Obesity is a serious and potentially life-threatening problem in dogs.
The extra weight a dog carries puts a massive amount of strain on the dog’s body, specifically on its heart, respiratory system, and joints of their body.
If your dog pants and breaths heavily after an average amount of exercise, such as a short walk around the block, see your veterinarian.
The dog’s vet can prescribe special food and a stricter feeding program that will allow the dog to lose weight, alleviate the dog’s discomfort. Prevent more serious problems from occurring.
12. Excitement
A dog will sometimes pant and breath harder in response to an exciting event.
Such as a loved one coming home after being gone for the day or when the dog encounters another dog that it becomes excited about.
As long as the hard breathing and panting behaviors stop shortly after the exciting event, your dog should be okay.
Keep an eye on the dog for a bit to ensure that the hard breathing was due to the excitement and ceases shortly after the event.
Healthy dogs should only pant briefly before their breathing returns to normal.
13. Exercising Hard
Dogs pant and breathe hard to obtain more oxygen during and after exercise and to cool themselves off.
Because dogs do not sweat, panting and hard breathing are how they regulate their body temperature.
If these body cooling behaviors do not calm down with a bit of rest time and move the dog to a cooler location.
The dog could be suffering from heatstroke, which is a severe condition that you must treat immediately.
On sweltering days, you should not exercise your dog outdoors or go on long walks. Read more about heatstroke below.
14. Heart Disease / Heart Failure
When a dog’s heart is negatively impacted by heart disease, it stops pumping properly.
This causes a decreased amount of oxygen to all of the dog’s vital organs and sometimes also causes fluid to build up in the dog’s lungs.
Fluid inhibits the exchange of gases into oxygen, causing a dog to breathe hard.
If a dog is coughing and breathing hard, especially if it gets worse when the dog is sleeping (laying down), these are signs of a heart condition.
Look for other signs of heart disease and congestive heart failure. Such as less interested in normal activities, out of breath easily, dry cough during or after exercise, eating less, pants a lot, and has a swollen abdominal area,
If any of these symptoms are present, it is a good idea to take the dog to a veterinary clinic.
They can scan his or her heart performed to determine what is going on with the dog so that the proper treatments can be administered.
Treatment will depend on the severity of the condition.
Medications such as diuretics and ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors, which widen and dilate blood vessels may be prescribed.
15. Heartworm and Lungworm Parasitic Infections
These conditions occur when parasites move through a dog’s lungs and heart, resulting in tissue damage, enlargement of the heart, and interference with blood circulation, all of which could cause a dog to have shortness of breath, breathe harder than usual, become tired easily, have nose bleeds, cough up blood, have a build-up fluid in the abdomen and/or chest (lungs) and sudden death.
Heartworms are spread to dogs via mosquito bites.
Preventative medications and methods are the best way to prevent a dog from getting heartworms and/or lungworms.
Once a dog has them, the treatments to rid a dog of these parasites are often dangerous, complicated, costly, and can take many months of aggressive prescription medications to clear up.
16. High Blood Pressure
This is a serious condition in dogs that can lead to blindness, kidney disease, kidney failure, and embolism, blood clots that can dislodge and lodge themselves into dangerous places, such as the dog’s brain, and cause death.
Numerous diseases are associated with a dog having high blood pressure and warning signs to watch out for and treatments that can be administered.
17. High Thyroid Hormone Levels
Also called hyperthyroidism, this is one of the conditions that can cause high blood pressure in dogs, which in turn can cause a dog to breathe hard.
18. They're Hot
Heavy breathing and panting are normal behavior for a dog to display when they are outside on a hot day.
However, you should never leave dogs in a car alone. Even when temperatures outside are a cool 70 degrees F, the car's temperature will heat up to a hazardous degree within 10 minutes of being outside.
And a dog should not be left outside for an extended period of time or taken on walk-in temperatures of 90 degrees or above.
If your dog’s heavy breathing calms down shortly after entering a cooler area and resting, he or she should be okay.
But if the panting remains constant and intense for an extended period of time, the dog seems to be in distress or restless, and/or if the dog’s gums are blue, purple, or white, these are signs that the dog is not getting enough oxygen and you should call your vet immediately, advises Dr. Amy Flowers (DVM).
Or rush your pet to an emergency veterinary clinic if the dog’s condition seems dangerous.
19. Heatstroke
Heatstroke is a severe condition in dogs. The sooner you respond, the better the outcome.
Because dogs pant (instead of sweating) to decrease their body heat, panting and breathing hard is normal behavior in dogs, to a certain extent and in certain situations, such as immediately following a lot of vigorous exercises.
However, a dog should be able to cool down fairly quickly. If not, heatstroke can occur and is often deadly to dogs.
Symptoms of heatstroke include glazed-over eyes, rapid heart rate, weakness, diarrhea, drooling, excessive thirst, bright or dark red/purple tinted tongue, gums, vomiting, seizures, and body temperatures above 104 degrees F.
If you think your dog is suffering from heatstroke, immediately move the dog to a cold location, wet the dog’s paws, submerge the dog in a bath of cool (not cold) water, or place ice packs and towels soaked in cold water on the dog’s head, chest, and neck, and offer the dog cool (not cold) water to drink or ice cubes to lick.
Then, place the dog in an air-conditioned vehicle and take the overheated dog to the vet to determine if there is a need for further treatments.
It is always best to prevent heat stroke rather than treat it because once these symptoms are present, damage to the dog’s organs and cells has likely already begun.
20. Injury / Pain
Unfortunately, dogs cannot verbally tell us when they are in pain.
But there are signs that a dog can give to let us know that they are injured and in pain, such as licking and/or biting at the area that hurts, dilated pupils, diminished appetite, restless behaviors, anxiety, unwillingness to lay down, whining, crying, not wanting to be touched, or limping.
However, many dogs will mask their pain and display normal behaviors, such as wagging their tail and being touched. Internal injuries may also be difficult to see signs of. If you believe your pet is injured or in any pain, take them to see a vet as soon as you can. The sooner the source of the pain is located and treated, the better the outcome will often be.
21. Kennel Cough
This bacterial or viral infection is extremely contagious and easily passed between animals.
It irritates a dog’s airway (windpipe), causing it to become susceptible, and as a result, makes it difficult for the dog to breathe.
If caught soon enough, antibiotics and limited exercise will often clear up kennel cough in the first and mild stages.
22. Laryngeal Paralysis
This occurs when the laryngeal cartilages at the opening of a dog’s windpipe (the larynx) are unable to fully open, resulting in a limited amount of air being able to reach the dog’s lungs, causing it to be difficult for the dog to breathe, which leads to hard and rapid breathing.
One sign of this condition can be a honking noise, similar to the sound that a goose makes, being emitted by a dog as he or she tries to breathe, and/or raspy panting.
Take your dog to a vet to discuss your options, one of which might be a surgery called the laryngeal tie-back operation.
23. Medication
Certain kinds of medications, especially pain medications and prednisone, are known to cause a dog’s respiratory rate (rate of breathing) to increase, causing the dog to pant and breathe harder than usual.
If a dog doesn’t seem to be in distress or behaving oddly and can get enough oxygen, it is usually okay to let this side effect pass as the medication wears off.
Call your vet to see if any medications your dog has been given could be causing this side effect, and always monitor your dog closely for any changes or signs of distress.
24. Nausea
If a dog is nauseous due to an illness, something they ate or having motion sickness from being in a vehicle, the dog will often breathe hard as a side-effect of their nausea.
When a dog is also vomiting or having diarrhea, do not offer the dog any food for a bit of time and offer small amounts of water or flavorless Pedialyte to help replace the dog’s electrolytes.
If vomiting or diarrhea lasts longer than four hours, take the dog to the nearest emergency veterinary clinic. If your dog suffers from motion sickness, there are many natural and commercially sold remedies available.
Also, some medications might make a dog feel nauseous. If your dog is taking any medication, call your vet to see if it might cause nausea, and ask your dog’s vet what they recommend you do to help your pet.
25. Pressure on Trachea
Pressure on a dog’s trachea (also called a windpipe) can be caused by an abscess, tumor, or enlarged lymph node, all of which would need to be assessed and treated by a vet.
However, excess pressure on a dog’s trachea can also be caused by a choke chain (and other training collars).
This is why it's often recommended to switch to dog harnesses because some of these collars can cause grave injury to a dog and are commonly not recommended for use by veterinarians, professional dog trainers, and behaviorists.
To prevent tracheal injuries, use a harness instead of attaching a leash to a collar. A trachea injury signs include reduced appetite, drinking more water than usual, and inability to bark.
26. Poisoning
A side-effect of a dog ingesting any number of poisonous foods, plants, or substances (such as cleaning supplies or human medications) can be heavy breathing and panting, in addition to increased heart rate, excessive drooling, and abnormal behavior.
If you believe your dog may have ingested something poisonous, rush the dog to the nearest emergency veterinary clinic to be treated, especially if the dog is behaving differently, seems nauseous, has diarrhea, and/or vomiting.
27. Respiratory Infections and Diseases
An infection in a dog’s chest and lungs, such as bronchitis or pneumonia, can cause fluid build-up in the lungs, resulting in a dog having difficulty breathing.
If a dog has a dry cough that might also cause gagging and retching, this could be bronchitis, and if the dog has a wet cough, is behaving differently, eating less, sleeping a lot, or running a fever, the dog could have pneumonia.
Lung cancer, although less common, does occur in dogs, and lung tumors can cause a dog’s lungs to stop working properly, resulting in wheezing, coughing up blood or mucus, and labored breathing.
For any of the above symptoms, a dog should be taken to an emergency veterinary clinic to be treated for its condition.
Treatment will usually include a round of antibiotic prescription medication and anything else the vet may need to do, based on the diagnosis and severity of each case.
28. Rhinitis
Dogs can contract long-term bacterial infections in their nostrils and sinuses, which is called rhinitis.
If a dog is sneezing, has a runny nose, and is licking its nose often, take the dog to see a licensed vet as soon as possible.
While this condition is not life-threatening, the sooner it is treated, the quicker it will be cleared up.
29. Short-Snouted and Squished-Face Breeds
Breathing hard is common in brachycephalic breeds, which is the name used for “flat-faced” breeds of dogs such as English bulldogs, French bulldogs, Boston Terriers, Pugs, and Pekingese.
The breathing condition that these breeds commonly have is called Brachycephalic Syndrome.
According to the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, the term Brachycephalic Syndrome refers to the combination of the elongated soft palate. It interferes with the movement of air into the lungs.
Stenotic nares, deformed nostrils, obstruct airflow. And everted laryngeal saccules, large tonsils, obstruct air flow, all of which are commonly seen in the breeds listed above.
This can cause long-term breathing difficulties in these dogs that put them at a significantly higher risk for heatstroke. This is because they cannot pant correctly.
If the dog’s breathing is dangerously interfered with, and/or if this condition causes dog distress, a surgeon can perform various forms of surgery to help remedy the condition and the negative impacts it can cause.
30. Tick-Borne Diseases
There are a plethora of dangerous diseases that ticks can transmit to dogs because ticks feed on the blood of a multitude of disease-infected creatures.
Then they attach to a dog and feed on their blood, transferring blood within the tick into the dog, including Canine Ehrlichiosis, Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Canine Babesiosis, Canine Anaplasmosis, Canine Bartonellosis, and Canine Hepatozoonosis.
The best way to prevent this from occurring is to take as many measures as necessary to keep your dog ticks off.
Even still, it is not always possible to prevent a tick from attaching to your dog, and in cases in which you suspect your dog may have been bit by a tick and had a disease given to them.
One of the very first signs of many of these illnesses will be an increased breathing rate and fever.
If your dog displays either of these symptoms and has been in an area with ticks, take the dog to be examined by a vet as soon as possible.
Common Questions about Dog's Fast Breathing
If you still have some questions about heavy breathing in dogs, then the following should help provide the answers you need.
What Does It Mean When Your Dog Is Breathing Hard?
Heavy breathing in dogs may just mean your dog is excited or still energized from exercise. He may also be hot, afraid, or stressed.
Make sure your dog has enough oxygen and if it continues or seems like serious respiratory issues, take him to the vet.
What Are the Signs of Respiratory Distress in Dogs?
Be on the lookout for blue gums, drawn-out breathing, rapid breathing, continuous panting, blue gums, or collapse.
Your dog may also be unable to settle down, seem distressed, or stand with his neck extended and elbows out. His chest may also move abnormally while breathing.
Why Is My Dog Breathing Fast While Resting?
If your dog has abnormal breathing without good cause, contact your vet. You should also look for other possible signs of dog breathing problems, like blue gums.
What Are Signs of Your Dog Dying?
Abnormal breathing is one sign a dog is dying. Others include loss of bowel or bladder control, loss of interest, and extreme fatigue.
What Do You Do When Your Dog Is Breathing Weird?
If you notice your dog breathing heavy or oddly, call your vet. He may give your dog supplemental oxygen or observe him. He may also check for other issues, like heat stroke.
Is Rapid Breathing a Sign of Pain in Dogs?
If a dog is breathing heavy, it can indicate pain. Dogs in pain sometimes pant or take more shallow breaths.
