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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Important Dog News

Important Dog News

by | 28 Comments

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No paywall, so read the whole thing:

From New Hampshire to Oregon, researchers are trying to figure out what’s causing an infectious respiratory disease among dogs that has turned deadly in rare cases.

The mysterious illness is described as an “atypical canine infectious respiratory disease,” the Oregon Department of Agriculture said in a November 9 news release. Symptoms include coughing, sneezing, eye or nose discharge and lethargy.

Veterinarians in Oregon have reported more than 200 cases of the disease since mid-August. Other cases have been reported in Colorado, Illinois and New Hampshire.

Not sure if there is anything you can really do other than pay attention if your dog starts to show these symptoms.

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  2. 2.

    Nukular Biskits

    Didn’t Betty C and someone else post about that yesterday? I was mobile so reading/posting is a little difficult for me.

    Not sure if they included the link but it’s good to repost this anyway.  Thanks, John!

    Our dogs generally don’t socialize with others but I suppose there is a risk of them contracting it when we walk them.

  3. 3.

    satby

    Appears to be a virus since antibiotics don’t work against it. Keep your dogs’ immunizations up to date and avoid dog parks and doggie play dates for a while.

  4. 4.

    suzanne

    Well, I guess this is an okay thread to announce that our new puppy (name TBD) joined us today. Just utter squeeeeeeee. She’s currently curled up under a blanket, being snuggled by Spawn the Younger.

  6. 6.

    Bex

    Congratulations also to Nicolle Wallace and her husband Mike Schmidt on the birth of their daughter Isabella.

  8. 8.

    Suzanne

    @satby: @Dorothy A. Winsor: I am actually, to revert to the topic at hand, a bit freaked out about this illness. Little puppy girl was on a plane due to transfer within the foster organization (she was found in Puerto Rico and then fostered in PA). All seems to be well right now…. Though she is absolutely exhausted.

  9. 9.

    jackmac

    That’s some worrisome news since we are out in California and our dog is being boarded for the week near our home in Illinois. Fortunately, we haven’t heard anything from the kennel about any problems so we’re hoping our dog will be happy and healthy upon our return later this week.

  10. 10.

    TaMara

    Friends’ puppy had this in September. The vets were stumped, he recovered, but clearly they have enough data now to understand how to treat it.

     

    Back in the early 2000s, we had a similar outbreak of an unknown virus that our neighborhood dogs passed around the fence line, not as serious as this, just coughing. Vets took a bit longer to figure it out, too.

    I’ve been watching my crew closely and we’ve cut out any store romps and I’m not traveling with them over the holidays.

  12. 12.

    Grover Gardner

    Well, Josephine the Party Hearty Girl here in Oregon had a bout of bronchitis last month, but antibiotics cleared it up.  Didn’t slow her down for one second.  Might as well blot out the sun as keep her away from the dog park, so I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on her…

  13. 13.

    Arclite

    I read one story where the dog got sick after a vet visit. So limiting your animal’s exposure to other animals might be a good idea.

  14. 14.

    Scout211

    Researchers have found a pathogen.

    The mysterious respiratory illness that may have sickened scores of dogs across the country could be caused by a new type of bacterial infection that may be very good at evading the canine immune system, researchers say. Some dogs have died from the illness, which starts with causes a cough that can last for weeks, runny eyes and sneezing.
    In a development that might help shed light on the illness, which has affected a variety of dog breeds, researchers at the University of New Hampshire’s Veterinary Diagnosis Laboratory and the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies told NBC News they have identified a pathogen that might be what’s making pets sick.

    Through a genetic sequencing of samples from an initial group of 30 dogs from New Hampshire who were infected last year and then an additional 40 from Rhode Island and Massachusetts who got sick this year, the researchers say they have discovered a previously unknown germ.

    The pathogen is “a funky bacterium,”  said Dr. David Needle, pathology section chief at the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture at the University of New Hampshire. “It’s smaller than a normal bacterium in its size and in the size of its genome. Long story short, it’s a weird bacterium that can be tough to find and sequence.”

    . . .
    While the respiratory symptoms seem to be like a viral illness, testing has been negative for a virus, Cantu-Schomus said.

    It’s very unlikely that the cause will turn out to be viral, said Colin Parrish, a professor of virology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. “With the sequencing methods people use to look for unknown viruses, its signature would have been clear in a few days,” he added.

    So it’s possible that the New Hampshire scientists could have  hit upon the right pathogen, although their results need to be confirmed by more research, he said.

  15. 15.

    satby

    @Suzanne: To be transported she’s had all the immunizations for her age so she should be ok. But if she seems lethargic at all after enough rest, or has other symptoms, get her to the vet fast. Puppies, like babies, can get very sick fast.

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    @satby: Agreed.
    She’s cold, I think. It’s a rainy day and she’s used to warmer temps. We’re cuddling her a lot and we lined the crate with fluffy blankets.

  21. 21.

    CaseyL

    If the cause is bacterial, then antibiotics should work against it.

    Unless it’s a mutated version of something else, and antibiotic resistant.

    I hope the researchers can come up with a treatment asap.

  22. 22.

    Grover Gardner

    I hope our dog lovers here don’t panic over this and deny their dogs the fun they deserve.  Their little lives are short enough as it is!  Our poor Junior got an auto-immune thing that caused him to simply collapse at 10 years.  But he had a whole bunch of pleasure before that.

  23. 23.

    karen marie

    I hope it hasn’t hit Arizona yet, because my 13-year-old spaniel is going in tomorrow for a blood draw in preparation for her dental next week when she’s slated to have many, if not all, of her teeth on one side of her mouth removed, including the canine.  I’m really concerned about how much pain she’ll be in and what recovery is going to look like, and what she’ll be able to eat going forward.

    She’s got a very strange gut that has caused us much drama over the years.  As a result, she’s on a very limited diet that will now be disturbed.   Getting a bacterial or viral infection on top of it would break me.

  26. 26.

    dlwchico

    Our girl loves going to the dog park and we usually go several times a week.

    This really sucks for her.

  27. 27.

    EireIAm (formerly Fled the US)

    @CaseyL: Sounds like a mycoplasma to me based on the description in the quote. They are weird little bacteria. No cell walls so impervious to many types of antibiotics – including penicillin and its derivatives. They’re also finicky about what they’re grown in and different species need different conditions and additives to survive in the lab.

    In fact, when we were collecting swabs we’d add penicillin into the growth medium to keep the other bacteria from outgrowing them.

  28. 28.

    StringOnAStick

    @satby: Some of the gene sequencing is suggesting that it is a bacteria, but if the plasmodium type so it has no cell wall.  Antibiotics work by penetration and destruction of bacterial cell walls, so no cell wall = no effective antibiotic.

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