Husky coughing

Question
I am going to try and explain this the best I can. Natalia is a 10 month old Husky.I bought her from a pet store. She is all up-to-date on her shots. 3 days after bringing her home she started coughing everytime she drank.I just thought she was drinking to fast. Then she was coughing up clear mucus. Took her to the vet the thought she either had pnemonia or lung worms. She had a chest x-ray that showed really nothing was in her lungs. She was on antibiotics for those diagnoses. After she finished the medicine problem came back including a runny nose. Took her back they thought maybe she had distemper. She was on antibiotics for that. Stopped the med, problem came back. Took her to see a specialist. They examed her. Lungs sounded good. They saw/heard nothing wrong with her except the cough. Got another chest x-ray it came out good. Blood work showed increased WBC which is obvious. Everything else was good. The whole time this is going on she eats good and has tons of energy. Now I thought maybe she had allergies or a sinus problem the whole time because it seems to be coming from that part of her body. So they came up with irritation of her respiratory tract. They put her on prednisone. She finished that and surprise problem is back. Now we do smoke in the house. I moved back in with my mom because I am going back to school for nursing and well financially it was better for me to move back. My mom smokes and she refuses to go outside to smoke. I can't tell her what she could do in her own house. So maybe that is the problem but I always smoked and had no problems with my previous animals. I am now giving her benadryl which doesn't seem to be working all that well. They wanted to do a trach wash but I don't have the money for that it came to over a $1000 and I already spent over $2000 trying to find out whats wrong with her. I haven't been able to get her spayed yet due to her condition because I am nervous putting her under anesthesia with the coughing and mucus problem not to mention the drain in my bank account already. If you could give me any insight on to what could possibly be wrong with her I would greatly appreciate it.  

Answer
ok, so what we can do is rule out what it is NOT, it is not a lung problem as the xrays have revealed nothing.
So it is an upper respiratory problem/infection OR allergy.
I live in Australia and am not experienced with lung worm so I cannot rule this out.
There are many causes of coughing in dogs, some of these include;
Allergic bronchitis

Bronchial foreign body

Cardiac failure

Chronic bronchitis

Chylothorax

Environmental irritants (pollen, dust...smoke)

Heartworm (would result in other cardiac problems)

Kennel cough *possibility

Lung tumours (should show up on xray)

Lungworm

Pneumonia (would expect this to show up on xrays)

Pulmonary edema (should show up on xrays)

Pulmonary granuloma (thickening should show up on xrays)

Roundworm migration

Upper airway obstruction (bone, food etc) (bone would show up on xray but some objects may not)

Tracheal disease

Tracheal collapse

if the dog responded to antibiotics perhaps she needs to go onto a longer course of antibiotics. Considering it improved with the prednisolone this suggests some type of inflammation so allergy, bronchitis, kennel cough, tracheal disease and tracheal collapse are all possibilities although trachael collapse should have shown up on the xray.

I would expect that a heart condition would have been picked up by either the vet listening to the heart or abnormalities on the xray.
Initially my first thought was kennel cough but this usually only lasts a week or two max.

Unfortunately I am not really able to tell you what is going on with your dog BUT if you are left having to decide what would be the next best diagnostic procedure I would definately recommend an endoscopy done of her trachea to search for abnormalities. I highly suspect you would get your answer from this procedure but if it is a bacterial or fungal infection the trachael wash might be more suitable and with the increased WBC this may be the way to go.

Increased WBC indicates an infection.

In the meantime discuss other antibiotics with the vet, i would be reluctant to keep a young dog on cortisone for too long. You can also discuss other antihistamine drugs like iramine with the vet.

Im sorry I cannot really give you many answers. Unfortunately in medicine it is a matter of ruling things out, so more tests are needed to determine exactly what the problem is.

If it were my dog my next step would be an endoscopy or trial more antibiotics for a longer period and see how she goes.

If she is not having any trouble breathing and is bright, still eating and drinking then you may be able to leave it for now and trial other medications.

good luck, i would be very interested to know what happens
thanks