The dog flu (canine influenza virus) continues to spread and hit places it already has. In Chicago, the city which very likely suffered the most cases, the flu still exists,in various city neighborhoods, lots of suburbs and in some animal shelters.
In Calumet, an outbreak of the dog flu has infected every single dog at the Humane Society Calumet, Indiana (southeast of Chicago) and one dog has died.
The shelter is going to remain closed for weeks, possibly even for a month, as they try to control the illness. It started with two dogs getting sick with respiratory problems one week ago and then spread frighteningly fast.
“By Saturday there were 25 animals sick, Sunday 50, pretty much Monday almost all of them, and surely Tuesday every single animal so all 99 of the dogs were all sick,” said Humane Society veterinarian Brenda Dines in a Fox 32 report. “Sometimes in a shelter, you have maybe 10 out of 100 sick, and that’s scary. But when you have almost 100 animals sick, that’s terrifying.”
Currently some of the sick dogs are very ill.
Clearly, the shelter did the right thing to shut down.
Cook County veterinarian Dr. Donna Alexander says, “If you have dogs that are at all ever social with other dogs, be proactive and prevent the simply by vaccinating.”
The flu that’s being spread in the Chicago area, and also currently around the country is identified at H3N2, a flu which somehow landed in the U.S. from southeast last year.
A Fox news report follows:
