I’ve been slow to provide an update, partly because I’ve been sick (not with canine flu) and partly because there’s fortunately less to report.

Muskoka

• We are still testing but it’s pretty low yield. One challenge is the baseline upper respiratory disease activity in the area. There are various viruses and bacteria that cause flu-like illness in dogs that are relatively common. The presence of a reasonable background of other upper respiratory pathogens complicates assessing the situation but I’m optimistic it is under control in that area.
• We are getting repeated samples from positive dogs to see when they stop shedding. As of our last round of testing, all of the known positives had stopped shedding the virus.

Northumberland

• The number of confirmed cases here has surpassed that in Muskoka. We are still getting new positives, which is a concern. However, only 5 new cases were identified last week, an improvement from the previous week.
• A link has been established from the Niagara region to the Northumberland cluster. This involves a dog that was taken from a Niagara region animal shelter and transported to Northumberland. An outbreak occurred in the Niagara area shelter but it looks like the virus didn’t escape.

Other regions

• We are still testing dogs in other areas, but no confirmed cases have been identified in other regions. One “inconclusive” result is being followed up.

Hopefully the next updates are even more boring.