When the reports first started coming in about a respiratory illness outbreak in New Hampshire dogs, in summer 2022, David Needle and his colleagues immediately began investigating.
At the time, Needle’s veterinary research laboratory was the only facility in northern New England with pathologists on staff, so he drove around to multiple clinics nearby to get tissue samples from the infected dogs. But after testing for the usual suspects, he’d come up empty.
“We found no known RNA or DNA viruses. No fungus, bacteria, protozoa, metazoa. Nothing closely related to a known pathogen,” says Needle, a senior veterinary pathologist at New Hampshire Veterinary Diagnostic Lab and a professor at the University of New Hampshire. The swabs were also negative for COVID-19, which has been found in dogs before. (Related: “COVID-19 is more widespread in animals than we thought.”)
This meant that whatever was causing the outbreak was likely new. Within a year, more than a dozen states across the U.S., from California to Florida, found similar illnesses in their dogs.
“We trust our colleagues, and so we went after it,” says Needle. As part of the effort to identify the cause, graduate student Lawrence Gordon at the University of New Hampshire’s Hubbard Center for Genome Studies began digging deeper into the data.
His analysis revealed a small segment of DNA that showed up in 21 out of 30 samples taken from symptomatic pooches in New Hampshire—a “pretty significant” proportion, according to Needle. Curiously, the DNA appears to belong to a previously undescribed bacterium, which is most closely related to “a strange bacteria that’s got a really small genome,” called Mycoplasma, he says.
In 2023, the team widened their testing to include samples from dogs in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the latter of which also showed the same unknown bacterium. As of late November, the team is also evaluating samples from Oregon, Colorado, and Illinois.
“We’re about three, four, five, six weeks from knowing a lot more,” says Needle.
While work is ongoing to learn more about this mystery bacterium, no one can say it’s the culprit, Needle cautions. It may be that the bacteria simply grow in noticeable numbers because the animals are weakened from some other pathogen, such as a virus.
A canine version of the common cold?
The new disease, which usually causes coughing, sneezing, and goopy eyes, lasts longer than other upper respiratory conditions in dogs, which usually clear in about 10 days. It’s also resistant to most treatments, such as anti-inflammatories. The good news is that most cases are not deadly, and the pathogen doesn’t appear to transmit to people.
“We definitely don’t want people to panic,” says Brian Collins, a veterinarian with the Cornell Richard P. Riney Canine Health Center in New York State, a research facility that has also been analyzing samples from symptomatic dogs. “Respiratory disease outbreaks are not unusual in dog populations.” (Get more pet news from National Geographic’s Domesticated series.)
It’s also unclear if all the cases of atypical respiratory illness found across the country are related. In fact, Needle thinks it unlikely that one bacterium is causing all of this. Rather, he wagers it’s a syndrome. (Learn how dogs have increased risk of dementia as they age.)
“A syndrome is just a group of diseases that have similar clinical signs,” he says.
For instance, the common cold in people is actually numerous virus or bacteria species that circulate during various seasons.
“If what we’re looking at is a new pathogen, we’ve probably found a new member of the canine upper respiratory disease complex,” says Needle.
How to protect your dog
There are several precautions you can take to protect your pooch. First, find out if there is an outbreak in your area, which could mean tuning in to the local news or contacting your veterinarian. Both the University of New Hampshire and Cornell are also providing updates about the illness on their websites.
Overall, the “biggest risk is to dogs associated with other dogs,” says Collins. Owners of dogs that go to parks, kennels, daycare, groomers and other social places “probably do need to have a little bit more of an awareness and concern.”
In general, Collins says that younger dogs, older dogs, and dogs with other chronic conditions, such as heart disease, may also be at higher risk. (Read: If you’re chronically stressed, your dog could be too.)
Ultimately, the best strategy to protect your pets is to keep them up to date on their vaccinations.
“If dogs are fully vaccinated per your veterinarian’s recommendations, they stand a better chance at recovering or having less serious disease,” says Collins.
Vaccines, social distancing, concern over preexisting conditions—if this is starting to sound a lot like the advice for limiting the spread of COVID-19 in humans, well, you’re not wrong.
“We’ve all been through this for us,” says Needle. “Now we just have to do the same for the dogs.”
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