Flu sweeps through dog world
Since July, Colorado Springs has had the dubious honor of being host to a widespread outbreak of canine influenza, an emerging disease in dogs.
Canine influenza was first identified in 2004 in Florida, although evidence from as far back as 1999 shows it was around then, but we didn't have a name for it or a way to identify it.
The symptoms are typical of "kennel cough," a general term used to describe the hacking cough of infectious respiratory disease that can be caused by any one of seven organisms.
A typical bout of canine influenza involves a hacking cough that starts four to five days after a dog has had contact with an infected dog or products that an infected dog has left behind. The cough tends to be worse at night and in the morning, and better when the dog is moving around during the day. It usually lasts for about two weeks, but I have seen some cases that hang on for six weeks.
Most dogs feel reasonably normal and continue to eat and drink. A very small number of them become debilitated and need more aggressive supportive care, possibly including hospitalization, to get them through. There is a form of the disease that causes a sudden and overwhelming pneumonia that often becomes fatal within hours of onset. We have not seen the severe form to any significant degree in the local outbreak.
Contagious diseases thrive in places where groups of dogs come together, and influenza in particular spreads easily between dogs. Animal shelters, boarding kennels, dog parks - even your veterinarian's office - are great places to be exposed, and once one dog in a household gets it, he will share with all the other dogs there.
It would be considered good manners to not take your sick dog out in public until he is recovered. If you are going to the veterinarian, it would be kind to let the receptionists know you have a dog that could be contagious so they can arrange for you sit in a place where no other dogs will be exposed. Fortunately canine influenza affects only dogs, so people, cats and other species won't get sick from the dog.
Because canine influenza is viral, antibiotics do not make it better. Sometimes we put our patients on antibiotics anyway to prevent secondary bacterial infections, but to get rid of the coughing, we just have to wait for the dog's immune system to learn to handle the virus.
The best way to battle viruses is to prevent infection with vaccinations. We have vaccinations for many other causes of kennel cough. Parainfluenza virus, adenovirus, distemper virus and bordetella are in the vaccines that most dogs get annually. But canine influenza hasn't been around long enough for a vaccine to be developed. The shifty nature of the influenza virus makes it especially hard to pin down, so progress may be slow.
Because of the outbreak in Colorado Springs, at least one major vaccine manufacturer has sent a special team here to collect samples from which it hopes to create a vaccine. In the movies, the handsome, brilliant epidemiologist would create the vaccine in five days; in real life, the time frame is probably many years.
Sometimes news releases portray this outbreak as the end times for all dogs. In reality, canine influenza is a nuisance for a couple of weeks, and then most dogs recover without looking back. Speculation that it will jump species and cause a second deadly human influenza pandemic is also great for inciting hand-wringing, but the virus would require several major and unlikely mutations to do that. If we are lucky we will have a vaccine soon and there won't be a need for much discussion about it.
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Anne Pierce is a Colorado Springs veterinarian and co-owner of High Plains Veterinary Hospital, a Colorado Springs small-animal clinic. Reach her at petdocs@highplainsvet.com.
