Fourteen states have reported an unknown respiratory illness sickening dogs. Multiple organizations including the Oregon and Colorado Departments of Agriculture and the American Veterinary Medical Association have issued warnings about the illness since early November.
[Related: Dogs and wolves remember where you hide their food.]
“We really don’t want people to panic. Respiratory disease in dogs is nothing new,” Brian Collins, a veterinarian from the Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, tells PopSci. “But there may be times when it seems like we’re seeing more disease than usual. We’re trying to keep a very open mind and are considering bacteria and viruses that we’re familiar with as well as novel ones.”
What symptoms should dog owners look out for?
Dogs with this illness generally have sneezing, coughing, eye or nose discharge, and unusual fatigue. They also do not test positive for any common causes of canine respiratory illness associated with kennel cough.
“What we’re seeing is that some of these dogs may have an acute cough that rapidly progresses to something more severe. That’s probably less common,” says Collins. “But the other general group that we’re seeing is dogs that develop a cough that just kind of sticks around for a lot longer, and doesn’t seem to be responding to the usual therapies.”
According to the AVMA, the illness can progress in three different ways. A dog could have a mild to moderate cough for six to eight weeks or more that either doesn’t respond to treatment with antibiotics or responds very little. There could also be chronic pneumonia that doesn’t respond to antibiotics. A more dire situation includes severe pneumonia that “often leads to poor outcomes in as little as 24 to 36 hours.”
Owners of dogs with comorbidities like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or who are immunocompromised should pay…
Read the full article here