A mystery respiratory illness that’s been hitting dogs across the United States, appears to have arrived in Canada.
CHCH News talked to one of Canada’s top vets on Monday who says there’s no reason to panic.
A dog named Moose is active and doing fine. But at a Hamilton dog park, Mike Mancini says his two dogs were in rough shape for a while.
“He started with the gagging and then he would throw up. Sometimes that would happen two-three times an hour,” said Mancini.
An expert in infectious disease in animals at the Ontario Veterinary College says that sounds like the illness that’s been reported in the U.S.
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“What we know is that we have places reports more coughing dogs, more dogs with respiratory disease,” said Dr. Scott Weese.
His figures show an increase in insurance reports of canine respiratory illness in Ontario this year over last year of more than 25 per cent, along with more than 70 per cent in Quebec and 32 per cent in Nova Scotia.
But he thinks the illness is not really a mystery, just a combination of factors that’s increasing the number of regular illnesses dogs get, after people changed their behavioiur around dogs during the COVID pandemic.
“We have More dogs, we have a lot of COVID dogs, we have a greater population of dogs, there’s been disrupted vet care, vets are really busy, so we more dogs, greater risks, less vaccination, greater degree of risk, now we’ve started mixing them more as people get back to normal,” said Weese.
Weese says most dogs will recover. But some that are older or have health problems could face complications, including pneumonia and even death. And it’s worthwhile taking precautions.
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One the key recommendations about this respiratory virus is to keep your dog away from other dogs.
At McCann Professional Dog trainers, they take precautions to prevent the spread of this kind of thing.
“Our buildings and rooms are all sanitized. We communicate with our students that if they’re seeing any symptoms or anything like that they should not come to class,” said Steve Walsh.
The experts tell us this mystery illness usually comes down to a fairly normal illness that most dogs can recover from.
But they say it’s just like a person, if a dog really looks sick and lethargic it’s time to see the vet.
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