Park City vet thinks he’s treated dogs with mysterious respiratory illness

PARK CITY — According to Dr. Carl Prior of the Park City Animal Clinic, outbreaks of kennel cough (a general term applied to upper respiratory infections in dogs) are common. But this summer was different: a few mysterious cases were reported in August.

Prior said that these cases, instead of simply affecting the trachea — causing a “honking” cough — more closely resembled mild-to-moderate pneumonia. And they were not responding well to the antibiotics typically prescribed for kennel cough. A case from a few weeks ago fits into this pattern.

Prior suspects that these are cases of the mysterious canine respiratory illness reported in at least 14 other states but not officially confirmed in Utah.

Several different pathogens, viruses, bacteria and organisms can cause upper respiratory infections, Prior said, and they are all grouped together under the label of kennel cough.

According to Prior, a dog’s specific infection is difficult to determine without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars isolating cultures. Often, by then the testing would no longer be effective as the shedding process would have already started.

“I’m not seeing more cases currently than we saw a couple months ago. We’ve had some in the middle where they’ve had severe pneumonia, more of a chronic type of pneumonia,” Prior said.

It iskey for facilities to have the proper protocols for dealing with sick dogs, Prior said. If a dog at a boarding facility is sick, it should be vaccinated and kept isolated until healthy, he said.

Prior said that he has seen two cases of this sickness at his clinic, but that other clinics have reported more. He noted that without a test specific, this illness would be difficult to track.

With these unusual cases, Prior said, samples are sent to laboratories for genetic tests in order to determine the specific pathogen causing the illness.

“We’re doing the care that the animal is going to need regardless of what the cause is,” Prior said. “I’m worried but I’m not extremely worried.”

Prior’s advice to the public is simple: “keep sick animals home, away from other dogs. Stay current on your vaccinations for your pets. If you have an older dog or a puppy that may be immunocompromised, you may want to limit what they’re allowed to interact with and not allow them to share toys or food.

Dr. Daniel Christensen, a state veterinarian at the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, said that the mysterious respiratory illness affecting dogs around the country has been brought up in conferences with other state veterinarians during the past two or three weeks.

According to Christensen, the defining characteristic of this disease is its persistence.

“At this point there is no evidence that this is more or less fatal than any other respiratory virus,” Christensen said.

Christensen said that the suspicion is that it’s a viral disease. He also noted that antibiotics don’t seem to be much help in these cases.

For Christensen, the lack of a specific test for this illness is not a cause of great concern.

“In most cases where a dog comes to a clinic and is treated for a respiratory illness,” he said. “They’re not going very deep and diagnosing a very specific virus or bacteria, most of the time.”

Christensen said there haven’t been any confirmed cases in Utah so far. He advised other veterinarians to follow up closely on cases involving respiratory illnesses in dogs.

“If it’s persistent, more like six to eight weeks, those are the things we’re asking veterinarians to report to us so we can get a handle on it,” he said.

Still, Christensen said he did not think the illness would become a serious issue in Utah.

“This isn’t something to worry about,” he said. “If it does eventually come to Utah, we’re already seeing respiratory cases like we do every year this time of year — nothing to be too concerned about, just be cautious.”