DES MOINES, Iowa — A mystery respiratory illness is making pet owners think twice about taking their dogs to doggy daycares and parks, sending them back to their vet with more questions than answers.
Sarah Pearce described her dog Jasper as a typically a calm, good-natured dog, but after boarding him at a doggy daycare, she started to notice unusual behavior.
"It started with him just coughing after eating, so we didn't really think it was a huge deal," Pearce said. "But then it kind of progressed from there."
After three visits to the vet and a few trial and error prescription attempts, Jasper is finally on the mend.
"He's now been on three different antibiotics, a steroid, a cough suppressant and Benadryl as needed," Pearce said. "Finally, the last combination of things seemed to work really well, but it just took a lot of kind of trial and error."
Over at South Des Moines Veterinarian Center, Dr. Melissa Beyer and her colleagues started seeing cases of this new respiratory illness back in September. They initially thought they were seeing an influx of kennel cough cases and prescribed treatment accordingly, before realizing it wasn't working.
"Since then, we've seen more and more dogs coughing, " Beyer said.
Beyer notes that while the number of fatalities from this illness is low, pet owners should keep their dogs at home until researchers can find more information about the disease.
"I would probably avoid dog parks right now; those areas where there's a lot of dogs in close proximity, and you may not know who those dogs are, it's probably a better bet just to err on the side of caution for that type of thing, just until we figure out what's going on," Beyer said.
As for identifying the illness, Beyer says there are veterinary labs that are starting to accept samples to conduct testing at a higher level.