Dog Flu

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Brittney

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 23, 2009
Messages
826
Location
Phoenix, AZ
I was at the dog park with my dogs and a reporter came up to me and asked if he could interview me. I said sure but he didn't tell me what they were interviewing me for until the camera was on. He asked me if I had heard of the "Dog Flu" that is spreading rapidly. I said no and he asked me what I know about dogs. I told him I went to school to become a vet tech, and I am currently in vet school, but I have still never heard of this. He asked if I would pay $20 to vaccinate my dogs against it. I said yes, and he proceeded to ask why. I felt like an idiot because I don't know what he is talking about. Not once have I heard about it. Not in the news, and not even in school. He interviewed another gentleman who was rambling on and on about how bad it is and how much he knows about it. Where have I been? Under a rock? Or perhaps sleeping in class?

I came home and researched it and apparently it is a virus strain similar to that of kennel cough. They were once thought to be the same thing, but later it was found that horses were responsible for transmitting it to dogs. This is possible because horse owners vaccinate their horses like crazy (I don't blame them) and it is actually causing the stain to become immune to the vacccine allowing it to gain the ability to jump species. People are now worried that if we start vaccinating dogs against it, it will become immuned again and jump to humans. Ehrgo, another pandemic like the swine flu.

Apparently the first documented case of this was in greyhounds at a race track in Florida.

I'm so embarrassed to be on TV now looking like an idiot saying I'm in vet school but I have no idea what this is. :cry3:

Has anyone even heard of this? Or do I need to crawl out of my hole and watch the news more?
 
yes I have heard of it. It was mentioned the begining of the year on tv (nbc) . Apparently it can be very dangerous for the dog and is very contiagous
 
I'm in vet tech school and haven't heard of it. Brittney, just curious, what college are you attending for you vet schooling?
 
For everyone else - basically, it's an influenza virus that was transmitted from horses to dogs. This has happened occasionally in the past, but normally, when a virus jumps species, it can't then spread within the new species (e.g., with that big avian flu thing a couple years ago, it occasionally went from birds to people, but what they were REALLY worried about was if it would then mutate so it could go from person to person. It didn't.). So, the current dog flu is a horse flu that spread to dogs, and can now go from dog to dog.

It causes symptoms similar to kennel cough. However, it seems to have a higher risk of causing pneumonia (and thus a higher risk of death) than the general kennel cough. Kennel cough itself is a complex caused by a lot of different viruses and bacteria (Bordetella bronchiseptical is the most famous, and the one most vaccinated against), and typically causes an unhappy, coughing dog, but rarely proceeds to pneumonia and death.

Canine influenza has been reported in 30 states to date (I forget which exactly), with, if I recall the map that I have at work correctly, is concentrated near Florida and the East Coast. There is some on the West Coast (esp southern CA). Risk factors for canine influenza are similar to that of regular kennel cough - dogs that congregate with other dogs (e.g., dogs that are boarded, go to dog parks, go to groomers, doggy day care, dogs in shelter situations, etc.). There is a vaccine now available for canine influenza, which appears to decrease severity of disease (i.e., make dying of pneumonia vastly less likely), but may not completely eradicate symptoms. It also shortens the time in which the dog is shedding virus.

One of the things that makes it bad is that dogs have no immunity against influenza, because it's not something that has historically been vaccinated against, because it's not something dogs have historically gotten. Thus, all dogs exposed will contract the virus, and spread the virus. The virus is shed in the highest numbers before the dog shows any symptoms (thus, the whole "keep your dog at home if he's coughing" doesn't do any good as far as keeping the spread of this virus down). Some dogs never show symptoms. Most dogs show moderate symptoms. A few dogs develop pneumonia and may die. It's not yet clear what the risk factors for developing the pneumonia are, so all dogs are currently considered at risk.

Like most respiratory pathogens, it's relatively wimpy (i.e., a good drying out, especially if preceded by some bleach, will kill it).

Not all vets will be carrying the vaccine, which has only been available a few weeks. The virus isn't really all that widespread yet. The clinic I am at has chosen to carry it because it allows us to start spreading some resistance to the virus around BEFORE it hits our area. This may or may not end up being the best choice (it may never get here, for example). We are offering it to all the same clients we are currently offering the regular kennel cough vaccine to.

Hopefully this makes sense and was useful.

Brittney, if you're in vet school, you should have access to VIN. There's a very nice FAQ on there about dog flu, as well as a great thread debating the pros and cons of vaccinating. PM me if you can't find it. Don't feel bad that you hadn't heard about it... vet school tends to teach you about what is currently applicable to the class at hand, and not so much about things useful in the real world (including current things affecting animal health unless it's directly applicable to the classes you're taking now :p). I was in school during the whole melamine pet food thing, as well as the bird flu thing, and I only know about them because the toxicologists (in the former case) and the poultry vet professor (in the latter case) held after-class open session mini-lectures/Q&A sessions about it. I.e., we barely touched on them in any of my classes. Heh.
 
I had never heard of it until 1.5 years ago when our dogs came down with it (we brought in a foster dog who must have had it). The dogs were put on medication and 3 of the 4 were fine- but our 6 y/o dobie/greyhound was really bad. The vet was worried about pneumonia and she almost had to be put on oxygen. She did eventually recover, but it took a while longer than our other dogs and she was definitely the worst off. It's highly contageous.

Our dogs were just vaccinated for the flu a couple weeks ago actually.
 
Last edited:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1145525683598&ref=nf

Those of you that have facebook or those that don't can watch.

Figures, the one day I'm feeling better and wanting to get out of the house, I get a camera in my face. Oh well. I'm happy with it. I don't seem as idiotic and on the spot as I thought, though, a lot was cut out. :) My rhodie mix wasn't so sure about the camera, lol she growled at it, but my doxie seemed to enjoy it :)
 
We got the vaccines in at the clinic this week but the vets haven't determined if they will be offering it or not yet.
 
I'm with AZ, your last comment was awesome :) and I like the guy at the beginning. "If you name it, it's a part of the family".
 
Back
Top