Unmasking the mysterious canine respiratory disease

Over the last few months, pet parents across the United States began to worry about the mysterious canine respiratory disease that affected pets in multiple states and took the media by storm. Now that pet owners are preparing to travel to see loved ones, and their pets, what should pet owners be aware of with this mysterious disease?

During an interview with dvm360, Laura Greene, DVM, DACVIM, senior professional services veterinarian and national internal medicine expert at Merck Animal Health, shared more background knowledge on her role at Merck Animal Health, plus the history of canine infectious respiratory disease complex in the United States.

Laura Greene, DVM, DACVIM: Canine infectious respiratory disease complex always has a baseline level of activity in the United States and elsewhere. Whereas a complex of viral and bacterial, infectious disease for for dogs, it's easily transmitted and dogs are constantly coming in with one or another or multiple of those pathogens affecting them. And we typically expect it to have a clinical course of a coughing dog that is feeling well, but coughing, and that occurs for maybe seven to 10 days is often self resolving [and] will resolve regardless of treatment, which is why the current guidelines typically don't advocate for, say antimicrobial treatment in those cases.