While pet owners across the U.S. planned for holiday travel last fall, many were hit with a fear for their four-legged friends as multiple states reported increased cases of dog respiratory illness.
The illness showed symptoms similar to canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC), also known as kennel cough, but was resistant to typical treatments. Oregon called it a mystery, and soon cases were reported from more than a dozen states.
The United States Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratories began sequencing some cases, and found that many had a common cause, not linked to a single infection nor a new pathogen, the agency said in a recent statement to USA TODAY.
While the lack of a central data collection agency makes tracking cases difficult, experts believe that cases have waned and this was another round of seasonal ebbs and flows for common dog illnesses on top of a growing trend of canine respiratory illness that has emerged in the last few years.
“If we get a new pathogen…it’s pretty dramatic,” said Dr. Scott Weese, an expert in emerging animal disease and author of a blog popular among state veterinarians, pointing out that this disease has not acted dramatically like the COVID19 pandemic. Rather, he said, “we’ve had this gradual increase in respiratory disease. We get these blips that occur and the blips get more obvious when you’ve already got a higher baseline level of disease.”
