Rabies and distemper are the two things that come to mind first when a raccoon is acting strangely. Rabies is a big concern because it can also be transmitted to people. Distemper is also a viral infection, caused by canine distemper virus, and is transmissible to dogs and some wildlife species, but is not zoonotic.… Continue Reading
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Rabies in a dog, Ontario
Posted in Dogs, Rabies, VaccinationIt’s easy to get complacent about rabies, even when you live in an endemic region. While we have ample bat rabies, Arctic fox rabies and raccoon rabies in Ontario, spillover into domestic animals is relatively rare. Success can breed complacency, though. When control measures work, it’s easy to forget why they are so important. That’s… Continue Reading
Leftover zoonotic disease Q&A, Part 2
Posted in Cats, Dogs, Rabies, VaccinationHere are some more leftover questions from the talk I did a talk recently for Third Age Learning in Guelph: As West Nile virus seems to be spreading, is there a vaccine becoming available for the general population? Probably not, but that’s just a guess. While it should be possible to make an effective human… Continue Reading
Leftover zoonotic disease Q&A, Part 1
Posted in Cats, Dogs, RabiesI did a talk recently for Third Age Learning in Guelph, and there was an abundance of questions. I didn’t get through them all at the time, so I figured I’d address some of them here: Do mice carry rabies? Mice aren’t rabies reservoirs like raccoons, skunks or bats, as they don’t have a rabies… Continue Reading
Rabies vaccine conspiracy
Posted in Cats, Dogs, Rabies, VaccinationBefore the emails start rolling in… yes, it’s from a satire site. See Dr. Sarah Boston (veterinary cancer surgeon extraordinaire)’s take on how veterinarians are misleading people into protecting people. EXPOSED – Vaccination of Pets Found to be Part of Larger Plot to Prevent Rabies in Humans… Continue Reading
Raw pet food recall and human illness, Minnesota, USA
Posted in Dogs, SalmonellaThe Minnesota Department of Agriculture has recalled some lots of raw pet food from Woody’s Pet Food Deli, after linking them to a human infection. The link isn’t definite, but was obviously enough to prompt a recall. The situation involves a person who developed salmonellosis and, as is typical, an investigation of possible sources ensued.… Continue Reading
Echinococcus multilocularis: Ontario, Canada
Posted in Deworming, Dogs, ParasitesEchinococcus multilocularis, a small tapeworm with a big name, is causing big concerns in Ontario, an area that was until recently considered free of this parasite. This tapeworm is normally found in the intestinal tract of wild canids (e.g. coyotes, foxes) and can also infect dogs. That itself isn’t a problem, since the intestinal form… Continue Reading
Rabies knowledge of vets and physicians
Posted in Cats, Dogs, RabiesI spend a lot of time answering questions about rabies exposures, and sometimes trying to clear up misinformation. Rabies is a very important infectious disease but in many regions (like here) it’s fortunately rare in domestic animals and people. However, rarity can breed complacency or lack of (or loss of) knowledge. That creates problems when… Continue Reading
Annual US rabies report 2017
Posted in Cats, Dogs, Horses, Other animals, Rabies, VaccinationAs is typical for this time of year, the annual US rabies report has been published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Ma et al, 2018). Here are some highlights: 4454 rabid animals were identified across the country. This is certainly a marked underestimate of the actual number since most rabid animals… Continue Reading
Holiday bites
Posted in Dogs, Rabies, VaccinationNo, we haven’t changed to a cooking blog, I’m talking about bites of the canine variety. I can’t think of any specific data that would show it, but I wonder whether bites are more common around the holidays, with disrupted schedules and more visitors (and a potential midnight intruder in a red suit). The rabies-related… Continue Reading
Update: Canine influenza, Ontario (December 3)
Posted in Dogs, Other diseasesI’m once again prepared to call Ontario (and Canada) canine influenza-free… for now, at least. The latest cluster, associated with another importation of the virus from China, seems to have been contained. The last new positive case was identified October 30, with the likely date of exposure being October 23. We are now beyond the… Continue Reading
Raw pet food and human salmonellosis
Posted in Cats, Dogs, SalmonellaWe’ve known for some time that there are human health risks from feeding pets raw meat-based diets. Most of the evidence of this has been anecdotal, as published reports have been sparse. A few better documented reports have started to appear, including the fatal E. coli O157 infection I wrote about recently. A few days… Continue Reading
CDC didn’t actually say “don’t dress up your chickens for Halloween”…but don’t do it anyway
Posted in Other animals, SalmonellaLots of media reports have been saying that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned people not to dress up their chickens for Halloween. Yes, chickens. I wouldn’t have thought that policing chicken fashion would be high on the CDC’s to-do list, but the concern is obviously related to the perpetual outbreaks… Continue Reading
PetsAndTicks.com: Our 400th tick of the year
Posted in Cats, Dogs, Horses, ParasitesHere’s a post by Dr. Katie Clow from our sister site, PetsAndTicks.com: Today, we received our 400th tick submission (actually, 401 to be exact). Does that sound like a large or a small number? Although there’s no real answer to that question, to me it seems like a pretty small number. At this time last… Continue Reading
Pet therapy dogs and MRSA
Posted in Dogs, MRSA/MRSPMy email and phone have been lighting up over the past few days about news reports describing a study presented at a recent scientific meeting in San Francisco. I wasn’t there and the results aren’t published, so I don’t have a lot to go on, but here are some highlights from the news article on… Continue Reading
A new Staph on the block
Posted in Dogs, Other diseasesIt’s probably not actually a “new” bacterium but rather recognition of a species that we’ve been mixing up with something else, but regardless, a paper in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (yes, that’s an actual journal) describes a new Staphylococcus species, Staphylococcus cornubiensis (Murray et al. 2018). Here’s what we know: The… Continue Reading
Bad headlines
Posted in Dogs, Other animals, RabiesI realize headline writers are trying to attract attention, and sometimes they don’t know much about the content. As a result, some headlines are quite over the top, and that can freak people out. Here are some examples from the past couple of days: 4 year old girl catches life-threatening infection by trying on shoes… Continue Reading
Human rabies death, Delaware, US
Posted in Cats, Dogs, Other animals, Rabies, VaccinationHuman deaths from rabies are common in some developing countries (where tens of thousands die from canine rabies every year) but rare in developed countries. It’s an almost invariably fatal disease, but at the same time it’s almost completely preventable because of the quality of vaccines and post-exposure prophylaxis available. Getting those treatments to the… Continue Reading
‘Tis the season for travelling (ticks, that is)
Posted in Cats, Dogs, ParasitesA post from guest blogger Dr. Katie Clow, reproduced from our sister site www.petsandticks.com. It’s summertime, and for most Canadians that means we’re taking some time off work to enjoy a little rest and relaxation. Maybe that’s a week at the cottage, or an adventure in another county. And if it’s a family trip, there’s… Continue Reading
Anti-vaccination and a fatal disease from horses
Posted in Horses, Other diseases, VaccinationBeing an equine vet in some parts of Australia (namely Queensland) is scary… to the point that people are leaving equine practice or refusing to treat certain cases. That’s because of Hendra virus, a bat-associated virus that infects horses and which can spill over into people. It hasn’t infected many people, but it is most… Continue Reading
Ontario hits 10 000 dRIT rabies tests since 2015
Posted in Other animals, RabiesToday’s post comes from Rachel Gagnon, Rabies Science Transfer Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), highlighting some of the amazing work being done in Ontario in the ongoing battle against wildlife rabies. Ontario’s rabies control program is a world leader when it comes to controlling and eliminating rabies. The MNRF… Continue Reading
Canine and feline antiparasitics
Posted in Cats, Dogs, ParasitesNegotiating the world of antiparasitics for dogs and cats can be daunting. With the wide range of products, similarly named products with different ingredients and differently named products with the same ingredients, it’s hard to keep up. The Ontario Animal Health Network as put together some useful tables that outline antiparasitic products available in Canada… Continue Reading
Freeze dried vs fresh vs frozen raw pet foods
Posted in Cats, Dogs, Parasites, Salmonella, ToxoplasmosisI think I’ve covered this before (probably a few times), but the question keeps coming up so it can’t hurt to talk about it again: “Is freeze-dried raw pet food any different than fresh or frozen raw diets, from a microbiological standpoint?” We don’t have much pet food-specific research, but there’s little reason to believe… Continue Reading
Updated Lyme disease risk map and infographic
Posted in Dogs, Other diseasesPublic Health Ontario has once again posted their updated Lyme Disease Risk Areas map for 2018. For comparison, you can still also access the 2017 map too, and you can see that once again (not surprisingly) the risk areas have expanded somewhat, including more of Eastern Ontario, as well as a few notable spots in… Continue Reading