A mysterious disease is worrying dog owners in the United States. Hundreds of animals in at least seven U.S. states — including Colorado, Rhode Island, Oregon, New Hampshire and Massachusetts — have contracted a severe cough sometimes followed by respiratory distress. This kind of canine pneumonia, which is highly resistant to treatment, has already killed several of the affected animals, reports the Washington Post.
Veterinarians identified the first cases in October. An unusually high number of dogs with the same symptoms flocked to the practices. These usually start with a simple cough that progresses to pneumonia, before turning into severe respiratory distress.
Many questions
Analytical laboratories are mobilizing to find a cure, while the disease is resistant to antibiotics. The owner of Thunder, a Hutski who died in two weeks after suffering a sudden cough, expressed her distress on BFMTV. "I want to testify: our dogs are getting sick," she said through tears, saying she wanted to make "sense" of her dog's sudden death, which two weeks of treatment and a veterinary bill of more than $16,900 could not save.
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We don't know what the cause is and we can't say for sure how it's transmitted," said Lindsey Ganzer, a veterinarian in Colorado whose center has received at least 35 cases since Oct. 20, four of whom have died. The vet describes symptoms as fever, cough, lack of appetite, runny eyes and nose, sneezing, and difficulty breathing.
Many questions remain about this strange disease, such as its mortality rate or its possible contagiousness to humans. Scientists, however, recommend that owners avoid contact between dogs, as the potential pathogen has been detected in nasal and throat swabs, which dogs can transmit through play. "I would strongly recommend that people avoid boarding facilities, dog daycares, anything that could represent a high volume of dogs in a space," Ganzer was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.