The Race to Find What’s Making America’s Dogs Sick
The Race to Find What’s Making America’s Dogs Sick
Hundreds of dogs across multiple states have been struck down with a severe respiratory illness. Veterinarians suspect a mystery bacteria but are still grasping for clues.
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What an absolute shitshow of an article from Wired. I know media often leads with fear mongering and hyperbole just for clicks, but this is bordering on dangerous with how they present it as some super mystery that will infect your furry friend.
They include this part:
David Needle, senior veterinary pathologist at the University of New Hampshire, has a lead on what the culprit might be; he thinks it may have been stalking canines for some time. In 2022, Needle’s team began looking at nasal and oral swabs taken from sick dogs in New England, in cases where no known cause of disease was found and the dogs weren’t responsive to treatment. They found a small DNA sequence of a potential disease-causing microbe in 21 of the initial 30 animal samples screened.
And then never elaborate on what the suspected culprit is, just leaving everyone hanging with their own worst case scenarios for what it could be.
The very next part of the information they are sharing, that they for some reason left out was that the doctor found is that it’s very likely being caused by the mycoplasma bacteria.
Which is the same one causing pneumonia in humans right now.
My understanding is these sorts of seasonal infections aren’t uncommon, and it’s likely being exacerbated by everyone returning to social norms, so all the little bugs are getting their buffet back on for the first time in years on a vulnerable population.
Who knows, though. I am not a doctor.
My wife and I got super concerned about this when we first heard about it a few weeks ago. We even called our vet to double check that our dogs were up on their vaccinations. Our dogs go to daycare 1-2x a week, and it’s not as if the doggie daycare is just them. It’s common for them to interact with dozens of dogs a week.
And then we realized that both our dogs probably already faced this down in the spring. They both went through a period of sneezing, followed by random eye goopiness for a few weeks. We even took our older dog to the vet to make sure she didn’t have pinkeye. They thought she did, and gave us a cream to use until symptoms cleared, so when our younger dog came down with the same eye goo, we just used that until he was cleared up.
The headlines are way scarier than the “huh, that’s odd” reality of it.
Thanks, calmed me. I would still be wondering
This isn’t your normal seasonal flu and that vet has been investigating the disease for over a year and still doesn’t have anything definitive, hence why it’s not in the article.
It is sensationalist cause yea, it’s not murdering your dog but it’s been going on long enough that we should have had some answers by now and don’t.
No, it’s a spike in the seasonal pattern, vets and doctors say it happens every few years or so, and is nothing to be concerned about.
Veterinarians say fears about 'mystery' dog illness may be overblown. Here's why they aren’t worried
And National Geographic has a much better source on it:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dogs-illness-respiratory-outbreak-us
All communicable diseases have seasonal patterns but I agree it may be overblown. I think what’s interesting about this thing in particular is that it hasn’t been identified and it isn’t the usual respiratory virus you get at a dog park.