Monday, December 18, 2023

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Dog illness showing up in Wisconsin; vets urge caution

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Wisconsin veterinarians have begun to see cases of a possible new canine illness and are urging dog owners to take precautions in response, but there’s also little evidence that the condition is deadly for most dogs.

What’s currently being called atypical canine respiratory disease started showing up around the state in late October, according to Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at UW-Madison, with clinics seeing between six and a dozen cases each. It began showing up in Colorado, Massachusetts and other parts of the country earlier in the year.

Most veterinarians report that dogs being treated for the illness have a cough that lasts four to eight weeks, according to a Dec. 4 white paper Poulsen wrote on the condition. It can look similar to kennel cough, which is caused by certain known bacteria or viruses and is generally characterized by a cough, lethargy, runny nose, fever and loss of appetite.

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But the new illness is not as responsive to common treatments for kennel cough, and researchers haven’t yet been able to pin down its cause — be it a new or mutated virus, bacterium or some combination of factors. There’s also some evidence it isn’t necessarily spread among groups of dogs, as with kennel cough, Poulsen said. It doesn’t appear to jump across species, like to cats, he said.

“Most likely, if I had to guess, it’s a novel pathogen or maybe a virus that has changed or a bacteria that’s changed,” Poulsen said.

Jessica Pritchard, a veterinarian and researcher at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, said there’s been no surge in hospitalizations for coughing dogs in the Midwest and that it’s not clear “whether what we’re seeing is kennel cough again or if it’s something new.”

COVID-19 shutdowns might have had the effect of lowering dogs’ immunity to pathogens as they and their owners limited contact with other dogs and vaccinations at regular vet visits were delayed.

“We lost a lot of the protection that we had for dogs when people stopped getting those vaccines because they weren’t traveling or boarding their dogs,” she said.

Vets are recommending a few strategies for guarding against the illness as researchers continue to try to understand it:

  • Make sure your dogs get their recommended core vaccinations offered during regular vet checkups.
  • While it’s unclear if the illness is spread through groups of dogs, it’s still worth considering risk when putting your dog in group settings. Owners might be wise to use dog parks when they’re less busy or opt for an in-home pet-sitter over a kennel when they travel.
  • Caution is especially warranted with young dogs who haven’t had all their vaccinations and dogs who are old or who have other illnesses that could make them more susceptible to atypical canine respiratory disease.

If a dog is just coughing but otherwise eating, drinking and acting normally, it’s worth checking in with the dog’s vet and to isolate the dog, but the dog likely doesn’t need emergency attention, Pritchard said.

“I don’t think people need to be super scared,” she said. “We did this with COVID. We know what to do when we’re sick: Stay home, try to avoid congregating in large groups where there might be unvaccinated or ill people or dogs, and follow those rules and it will probably be OK.”