I have a Dutch Shepherd who is 4 years old. This last summer while training the dog he had a hard time breathing and after being seen by an emergency vet we were told he had heat stroke. Six months later (Sun night) while working with the dog, after just 3 bites the dog did not want to bite anymore and had a very hard time breathing. about 20 mins later his breathing was normal and he was fine. Tues after another quick bite session the dog again had trouble breathing. Another trip to the vet gave me some interesting info.
The vet told me my dog had Laryngeal Paralysis, it is unknown if this is permanent or temporary, however he describe it to me. He said there is possibly scar tissue on the Larynx of the dog, when he has time of high stress or when his body temp starts to rise, the tissue inside the larynx will start to flare up causing it to close the tube. This is the reason for the dog not breathing. by the time we arrived at the vet the dog's temp was approx. 108. This is the cause of the heat stroke during the summer time. I was told there are just a couple causes of this. Your born with it (they don't think this is the case), or it is caused by Trauma to the neck by a choke chain or pinch collar or fight where the neck was punctured. They said the pinch collar is better for the dog, however it will help the process as well. They also told me it is not something that happened overnight. It was prolonged exposure to a choke or pinch to cause this to happen.
Has anyone ever heard of this condition and if so what have you heard about it. If you have heard about it can you tell me what other handlers have had to do with the dogs that have had it. Also what are you thoughts on it. As of right now were putting our heads together for this whole thing and I am just looking for anyone who could shed a little light on it for me. If you know of any information I can look up to better educate me on the subject that would also be great. At this time your thoughts would help me greatly on this matter. Thank You
I do want to hear from anyone that has heard of this condition, however if there are any police dog handlers that have had this happen or know of a police dog that this has occured in i am really intrested in what happend. We need to know if the dog could ever be worked again after surgery or if its worth it. We just have a lot of questions, this is the first incident we have delt with and are in the dark. Thanks to you all!!!!!!!!!!

Don't know if this will be of any help..

I have a female GSD (8 years old). She had a problem which sounds a lot like the one you described. It appeared when she was about 3 years old. Don't really remember if it was a hot day or not, but she got excited over something and started to have problems breathing. I described it over the phone to my vet and he thought she may have heart problems. However they checked her heart and it was fine. By exciting the dog the vet was able to induce the breathing problems again and said the dog had some kind of constriction of the tube. He gave it a shot with something relaxing and it passed... There were no more incidents for a long time and nothing more was done, so unfortunately I can't offer any “medical solutions”...

However, the condition didn't affect the dogs “career”. The dog was trained to SchH3 and participated at the FCI World Championships. The condition never appeared during training. Now she has incident very rarely. She will stop whatever she is doing, stand still and everything returns to normal within 4-6 seconds. Incidents are almost always connected with pulling on the leash while walking. She has not done any kind of dog training for the last 2 years.