buddy ... buddy...:Dogs Cough, and Owners Worry
By JANE GORDON
AS leading veterinarian virologists announced that a new canine influenza virus was spreading across the country, Connecticut veterinarians, and kennel and dog owners, said last week that they have been worrying for a while about an unusually persistent and contagious cough in dogs this year, particularly in puppies. The illness, they said, mimics the symptoms of kennel cough, a common, highly contagious canine illness. But this year's cough spreads more rapidly and makes the dogs sicker.
The question is: Is this the canine influenza virus that was isolated by a University of Florida scientist and that has sickened and even killed dogs in several states, including in the New York suburbs?
As of last week, Connecticut officials said they were not sure what the disease is, or even to what extent it is affecting dogs in the state.
But Dr. Edward J. Dubovi, head virologist in the diagnostic laboratory at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, N.Y., said the illness seemed to be the new virus, canine influenza, which first surfaced at greyhound racing parks in Florida in 2004, and was identified by Dr. Cynda Crawford at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
There are no known cases of the virus's infecting humans. It is not related to typical human flus or to the avian flu that has killed about 100 people in Asia.
The virus, Dr. Dubovi said, had not been seen in dogs before and mutated from an influenza strain that affects horses.
"We're talking about a different virus that had not been identified prior to a little over a year ago," Dr. Dubovi said. "The virus that is currently sitting in dogs has its origin probably in the influenza virus of horses. We have potentially a new infectious process that will have to be dealt with in the dog population."
Dr. Dubovi is one of more than a dozen authors of an article on the virus for the journal Science, which has not yet been published.
The Connecticut state veterinarian, Dr. Mary Jane Lis, said the state did not have a test for the virus.
Local veterinarians who suspect the disease is present in their patients should get in touch with Dr. Dubovi at Cornell, who at the moment is conducting the only tests for the virus. "It's a relatively new problem, but there are protocols in place on how to make a diagnosis," Dr. Lis said. "We've already disseminated information to the Connecticut Veterinary Association and to our own diagnostic lab."
"We're kind of on the fringes here, waiting for information," Dr. Lis added.
Connecticut's Department of Agriculture, which regulates animal health, does not require reporting of any unusual illnesses in animals, Dr. Lis said.
Meanwhile, dog owners like Laura Bosco of Glastonbury have been trying to figure out why their pets are sick.
Mrs. Bosco left her healthy Pembroke corgi, Casey, at a kennel for a few days in August while she traveled to Block Island with her family. When she returned to pick up the dog, kennel employees told her Casey had contracted kennel cough. Mrs. Bosco was puzzled, because Casey had been immunized against that common disease.
"They told me the kennel cough was going around, and that every kennel had it," Mrs. Bosco said. "He would cough so much he spit up quite a bit of phlegm. This went on for days and wasn't going away."
Kennel owners and veterinarians who have recently seen sick animals have been as puzzled as Mrs. Bosco.
"As a whole, the industry needs to educate the public about what's going on," said Christian Suter, owner of Candlewick Kennels in Glastonbury, where Mrs. Bosco boarded Casey. "And certainly the public thinks it's only kennels, it's only grooming shops. But you're seeing this in any community environment of dogs, from kennel facilities, doggie day cares."
"There needs to be a study done on it," Mr. Suter added. "That's what everybody wants."
When canine influenza virus was found in Florida greyhound racing parks, it infected 24 greyhounds and killed 8. According to an article in the fall 2004 issue of the Kansas Veterinary Quarterly, the disease spread quickly through greyhounds in Florida, and traveled to greyhound parks in Rhode Island, Kansas and Texas. The article was written by Dr. William Fortney of Kansas State University, who participated in diagnostic testing for the virus. He wrote that
in one case, two dogs that were fine at bedtime were dead the next morning, lying in a pool of blood. The cause was severe hemorrhagic pneumonia.
There is no treatment for canine influenza virus; Dr. Dubovi recommended that veterinarians prescribe antibiotics to treat possible secondary infections like bacterial pneumonia, which can be fatal.
Dr. Patricia Hart, a veterinarian at County Veterinary Hospital in Fairfield, said she has been seeing a more tenacious form of kennel cough in puppies, which persists for days and does not respond easily to antibiotics.
"Kennel cough is typically a glorified cold, like putting 10 kids in a classroom and closing all the windows," Dr. Hart said. "You need to have the right conditions to start passing it around. But I've been seeing a type of kennel cough not associated with kennels and not associated with any big holidays."
Kennels are generally busier during holidays when pet owners are away.
Dr. Hart said puppies she had treated with the illness had responded to the antibiotic Zithromax.
"But they need a long course of it," she said.
Dr. Stacy Robertson, a veterinarian in the South Wilton Veterinary Group in Wilton, said she had not seen more kennel cough lately.
"But the kennel cough I've seen seems to be a bit more potent, and mostly in younger dogs," Dr. Robertson said. "Over the past year I have seen some more puppies than usual that need to have stronger medications or longer treatment than your typical average kennel cough."
She said that when a dog has not responded to antibiotics, she has checked it into the hospital for nebulization treatments, in which the dog is placed in a chamber. Medicine is administered through a mist into the chamber.
Candlewick Kennels has posted signs alerting dog owners to what employees believed to be a mutant strain of kennel cough and warning them that the vaccine for common kennel cough would not offer protection.
Mr. Suter, the kennel's owner, said he had posted the signs because many clients believed that once their dog received the vaccine, known as the bordetella vaccine, they would be protected against any strain.
"Vets say that the bordetella will guard against some strains, but not all strains," Mr. Suter said.
Mrs. Bosco's veterinarian, Dr. Lenka Babuska of the Manchester Veterinary Clinic, prescribed Cipro, a strong antibiotic, to fight the illness in Casey, Mrs. Bosco's dog. She said she realized early on that Casey did not have a standard case of kennel cough, nor did the four to five dogs a day she was seeing this summer with the same illness.
"It wasn't the typical cough that the laymen's term has been coined for," Dr. Babuska said. "My feeling is that one dog that has been exposed to a dog with this bronchitis may not be terribly symptomatic, but it can certainly infect another dog that will be symptomatic. I prescribed Cipro because it is strong, and I was finding that nothing else was working for these respiratory issues."
Casey has recovered. But Mrs. Bosco said she was not sure what to do about boarding him again in any kennel if the ailment persists.
"Here the dog was, expectorating on my carpet, and the vaccine wasn't helping," she said. "I have to figure out what I'm going to do in the future. Is this a problem that is going to continue? Are they devising a new vaccine? The kennels are requiring the vaccine to board the dog, and now the vaccine is doing nothing." |
