TROY, Mich. (WXYZ) — As the mysterious respiratory canine illness makes its way across the United States, a leading veterinarian at Michigan State University says while it's important to stay vigilant, pet owners shouldn't panic.
Meanwhile, local dog boarding businesses are starting to feel the financial impacts of the fear surrounding the illness.
Dr. Kimberly Dodd is a virologist and veterinarian who studies infectious diseases in animals at Michigan State University. Not only is she the director of the diagnostic laboratory at the university, she's a dog owner who has closely been following the mysterious illness that has now spread to at least 14 states.
"We're working really hard with clinicians across Michigan and other diagnostic laboratories across the country to try to... really get our arms around what's going on," Dodd said.
She says the illness is a mystery because researchers aren't sure if this is a strain of the kennel cough or something completely new. Veterinarians know it spreads dog to dog like most respiratory illnesses, but they don't know if it's viral or bacterial, and dogs aren't responding to the antibiotics already available.
"We really don't have enough information yet to determine if this is something new and how to best classify it," she said.
While the American Veterinary Medical Association has not officially detected the illness in Michigan, Dodd believes it may already be here since reporting infectious diseases in dogs is a convoluted process.
"There's no required reporting structure, so that makes it challenging," she said. "Until we know what the cause is of a particular disease, we don't know what the best treatment is. The most important thing we can be doing at this point is work together with veterinarians to be able to collect samples, to try to identify a potential cause."
While veterinarians and researchers like Dodd continue to monitor the illness, they say it's not time to push the panic button.
"We want to make sure that every dog that coughs, we don't jump to conclusions," she said.
Meanwhile, the panic button has already been pushed, according to local dog boarding and day care businesses as they're starting to see a loss in revenue from frightened customers.
“We have between 70 to 80 dogs a day, and now we’re at like 45," Pawz Inn co-owner Dennis Schultz said. “We’ve got quite a few customers that have canceled through January.”
Pawz Inn offers boarding and day care services and has been in business for 18 years in Madison Heights. Schultz says due to the rapid decline revenue, employee bonuses may have to come from his own pocket instead of the company's.
“It’s a lot. We have to watch our staff’s hours. Everybody takes a hit," he said. “And prior to this, we were making a huge comeback. It would’ve been probably one of our best years.”
It's a similar story at Hounds Town Metro Detroit. While they're still booked up through the holidays, they're noticing a trend of increasing cancellations. To help reassure customers, they're stringent about cleaning procedures, vaccination requirements for pets and quarantine a dog if they notice one experiencing respiratory symptoms like coughing or sneezing.
“We do a lot of work just ahead of time making sure that all our dogs are vaccinated, that every single play room is cleaned every single day," owner Travis Ogden said.
Pawz Inn says they've also increased their safety protocols to make sure no spread of illness.
“Our cleaning protocols are like hospital standards — just in case," Schultz said.
If your pet starts experiencing symptoms of coughing, sneezing or nasal discharge, call your veterinarian and keep your pet away from other dogs. Keeping up to date with vaccinations will help prevent illness as well.
"We want to encourage pet owners to be vigilant, but also to reiterate the fact that in most cases, the illness... is most likely due to just a routine respiratory infection," Dodd said.
