These days, it’s really easy to identify new viruses. Our technology has advanced so much that you can sequence a vast array of viruses from almost any sample from an animal, person or the environment. Finding the viruses is easy, but understanding what, if any, roll they play in the grand scheme of things is
I get a lot of questions about what to do when a healthy dog tests positive for antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. It happens regularly because this test is often run alongside blood tests for heartworm, whether we want it or not – it’s really just along for the
Cyclospora has been in the news a lot lately because of a large, ongoing outbreak of cyclosporiasis in people in the US. Total case counts aren’t clear (and official numbers are always lower than the true number of cases because of under reporting) but it’s estimated that well over 10 000 people have been
Here’s a screenshot of a quick but useful New World Screwworm (NWS) resource for animal shelters that was developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison Shelter Medicine Program in collaboration with a number of shelter organizations and shelter medicine experts. With the continued re-emergence and spread of NWS from Central America back into the southern US
Last year around this time, were were talking a lot about a cluster of cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) in dogs (and people) associated with Long Point, Ontario. Prior to 2025, we didn’t consider this tickborne disease to be established in the province, but then we detected multiple confirmed cases in dogs
This post is going to be long a long one, as treatment of Brucella canis infection in dogs is a complicated, and there are a lot of important associated issues to mention. TL;DR – I’m not a fan of the hard line “thou shalt euthanize or lock away a dog with B. canis.”
UPDATE: June 11, 2026. Nitenpyram has also been given emergency use approval (EUA) for dogs and cats over 2 pounds and 4 weeks of age.
While completely expected given the steady march of New World screwworm (NWS) through Central America and Mexico over the last several years, this horrific parasite finally crossed the US
As for a lot (or most) conditions we treat with antimicrobials in dogs and cats, data on how best to use antimicrobials before, during and after dental procedures are sparse. We know that antimicrobials are used a lot for canine and feline dental procedures (Weese et al. 2023), and that a large percentage of
I wasn’t very quick to write about this because while some incidents of contamination of raw pet food prompt recalls, such contamination is a largely expected event that occurs every day under the radar.
This was also another example of a company ignoring an FDA request to recall raw pet foods in response to
I’ve seen quite a bit of “can your dog or cat get hantavirus?” discussion in media lately, in follow up to the recent cluster of human hantavirus cases associated with a South Atlantic cruise ship. Fortunately, unlike past articles about many other emerging infectious diseases, these have mainly been pretty low key.
