By Carrie Hyde, The Spaw Pet Life Coach | February 24, 2024

Last year, dog owners across the nation were warned about a mystery illness that was spreading rapidly through the canine world. With symptoms that included an extended cough, treatment-resistant pneumonia, and, sometimes, death, many chose to change their routines to keep their dogs safe.

This meant keeping their pets away from dog parks, doggie daycares, and grooming centers. This was supposed to be temporary, with promises of more answers in the near future. Now, months later, discussion about this mystery illness has practically disappeared and the promised answers still have not reached most dog owners.

So, what was the mystery dog illness of 2023? And, equally as important, why are we no longer talking about it?

Tracing the Path of the Illness

While the first national news regarding this mystery illness didn’t come out until late November of 2023, the first cases reported by veterinarians started in the summer of 2022.

New Hampshire vets were the first to voice concerns over a new respiratory illness in dogs that came with some typical symptoms, including sneezing, lethargy, and coughing. What made this illness different is that many dogs developed a persistent cough that lasted for six weeks or more. And a small but significant number of dogs developed acute onset pneumonia that did not respond to traditional treatment.

By August of 2023, the Oregon Department of Agriculture was reporting over 200 cases of dogs with a severe form of this mystery illness. By the beginning of December, signs of the illness had popped up in fourteen additional states, including California.

Researchers in New Hampshire, who had been trying to identify and sequence genetic material from this mystery respiratory illness for over a year, thought they had a breakthrough shortly after Thanksgiving in 2023. They had found an atypical bacteria present in samples taken from the majority of dogs with severe symptoms they were studying. This smaller-than-normal bacteria was thought to be a mutated resident bacteria of dogs’ natural internal biome.

Reports of a potential mutated bacteria circulated throughout the holidays. But by the end of the year, multiple other research outlets had debunked this theory, finding that many dogs with the telltale symptoms of this new illness did not have this bacteria in their system.

Other investigations into the illness also failed to find a clear connecting pathogen, novel or known, present in all cases of the mystery respiratory illness. By January 2024, even as cases continued to pop up in new states, news coverage of the mystery illness waned.

What Caused the Mystery Dog Illness of 2023?

So what caused the mystery canine respiratory illness of 2023? The consensus seems to be the same old bacteria and viruses that typically cause respiratory illness in dogs.

For most of the past two decades, the number of respiratory illnesses reported in dogs has held fairly steady year to year. Then, in 2021, these numbers suddenly began to rise. This same rise in cases held strong in 2022 and 2023, with the latter year showing a higher incidence of severe illness and death.

The real question is not, “What is causing this rise?” but, “Why are dogs getting sicker more often and more severely from the same old pathogens?”

The answer is likely the same for humans as it is for dogs.

Over the past three years, humans have also been experiencing more respiratory illness and more severe illness. Indeed, at my daughter’s school this past winter they saw an unprecedented number of students with pneumonia—an atypical illness to present in Elementary-aged children. Cases of RSV, flu, and severe colds have also been on the rise.

The answer to why lies in the Covid pandemic. For nearly a year, the entire country went on lockdown. For humans, this meant less contact with others. The same was true for our dogs. Daycares and boarding facilities were closed for months and people were avoiding crowded dog parks like the literal plague.

When things did begin to open back up, pet facilities were taking extra precautions, including extra cleaning measures and reducing the number of pets in-house at any given time. Even as 2020 gave way to 2021, people continued taking extra precautions: staying home anytime they felt even a little ill, masking up in crowded situations, and handwashing to a near-neurotic degree. We also traveled less, worked from home more, and took on many other habits that saw our dogs staying home more often.

All this is to say that for nearly two years, humans and dogs were better protected from encountering respiratory illnesses than ever before. While this was a very good thing during a time when hospitals were overrun with Covid patients and vets were severely short-staffed, it did impart a great cost on our immune systems. One we are starting to see more clearly each winter.

Being exposed to illness consistently allows both human and dog immune systems to build up necessary immunity to various viruses and bacteria. An extended gap in exposure left all of us susceptible to not just one or two illnesses, as is typical, but to a whole slew of respiratory pathogens. When multiple pathogens infect the respiratory tract at the same time or in quick succession, it leaves the system vulnerable to severe secondary illnesses, most commonly, pneumonia.

The fact that many of the pneumonia cases hitting dogs this year were resistant to treatment is not surprising. We have been overprescribing antibiotics to humans and pets for decades and we know antibiotic-resistant bacteria is on the rise. It doesn’t take a novel kind of bacteria to cause untreatable illness, only the mutated forms we create by overusing and misusing antibiotics and other medications.

Dissecting What Went Wrong

Most researchers and veterinarians now agree that the mystery dog respiratory illness of 2023 was actually just the normal illnesses hitting harder than usual due to the prolonged effects of behavioral changes that occurred during Covid.

While the illness itself turned out to be rather mundane, the mischaracterizing and fear-mongering that occurred during the reporting of the illness had serious consequences.

Many pet businesses, including daycares, boarding facilities, and groomers, like The Spaw, lost business during what should have been the busiest time of the year. Worse still, many dogs were misdiagnosed and mistreated during the hysteria. A client of The Spaw was treated for respiratory illness for three months without improvement until an internist finally looked beyond the headlines to diagnose a treatable genetic condition.

While a tendency toward panic bred by recent events may have spurred much of the hysteria surrounding this illness, just as much blame can be put on the way we track pet health issues. Most states have no central governing body or reporting agency that handles companion pet health data.

The reason we have numerical data from the cases in Oregon is because they actually track, to some extent, illness data in dogs. Other states had to rely on information provided by individual vet clinics to major institutions such as Colorado State University’s Veterinary Hospital.

Without a better system to track health information and illness patterns in pets, this kind of misinformation and confusion is likely to cause more problems in the future.

How to Protect Your Dog from Severe Illness

There may not have ever been a dangerous new pathogen targeting dogs, but that doesn’t mean dogs weren’t getting severely ill. The problem of lowered immunity and respiratory illness rampaging through populations continues to be an issue and likely will be for another couple of years. So how do you protect your dog?

Just as we can take steps to boost our own immune systems, there are things you can do to ensure your dog’s immune system is up for the challenge posed by the communicable illnesses of today.

A Quality Diet

The first and most important step to keeping your dog healthy in all respects is to provide a high-quality, species-appropriate diet.

High-quality means food that is full of fresh ingredients, not overly processed fillers, chemicals, and additives. Species appropriate means a diet that is made largely of meat, organ meat, and ground bone.

We’ve talked extensively about the benefits of meat-based diets for dogs. In short, these diets provide the right balance of macro and micronutrients that dogs evolved to digest and use. When they get all the protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals they need, their immune systems can do more to fight pathogens.

Probiotics and Supplements

Did you know that 70% of your dog’s immune system exists in their gut in the form of beneficial microbes that communicate with and control immune cells? This is one reason why the right diet is so vital to immune health. It’s also why adding a complete and effective probiotic to your dog’s meals can be incredibly beneficial.

Colostrum is another great immune and digestive system booster that can help dogs stay healthy. Similarly, raw goat milk fed in place of their meal once a week can do wonders for your dog’s overall health.

 

Other supplements, including echinacea, goldenseal, medicinal mushrooms, and CBD have immune system-boosting effects. These can be used daily, but are especially helpful to use before and during potential exposure to pathogens, such as during boarding. Goldenseal is an especially powerful supplement for supporting respiratory health.

Reduce Mental and Environmental Stress

You know how stress can affect your immune system. The same is true for your dog. In order to keep your dog in top shape, it’s important to keep their stress levels at a minimum.

During day-to-day life, this means providing a safe, quiet home environment, giving your dog plenty of mental stimulation and physical exercise, and avoiding activities that your dog doesn’t enjoy.

Of course, stressful situations aren’t completely avoidable. Things like vet visits, grooming, and boarding sometimes have to happen. But you can help keep your dog from getting overly stressed by introducing them slowly to these activities. That means doing a few short days of daycare before their boarding stay and talking to your groomer about doing introductory visits before their first real grooming session.

Stress doesn’t just come from activities. Your dog’s body experiences plenty of stress from environmental factors, including toxins, medications, and vaccines. By feeding quality food and only using medications and giving vaccines when necessary, you can avoid many of the chemicals that stress your dog from the inside out.

To keep your dog’s respiratory system from getting unnecessarily stressed, be sure to pay attention to your home’s air quality. So many things that enter our homes today, including furniture, flooring, and outdoor air, contain toxic gasses that accumulate rapidly when trapped below our roofs. Decorating your home with live plants and using a quality air purifier can help keep the entire family’s respiratory system in better shape.

Final Takeaways

The mystery canine respiratory illness of 2023 turned out to be nothing more than multiple common communicable diseases affecting dogs that were underprepared to fight them. While there were a lot of special circumstances surrounding this strange “outbreak,” the take home is nothing new.

If we don’t take steps to safeguard our pets’ health by feeding them a quality diet and supporting them using supplements while providing regular activity, they will fall victim to pathogens. Even more, we need to do our part to ensure medications, especially antibiotics, are not being overprescribed or misused.

When we have confidence in our dogs’ ability to fight illnesses, we are better equipped to not fall victim to the fear-mongering and sensationalism that drove this nonexistent pet pandemic.

By Carrie Hyde, The Spaw Pet Life Coach | February 22, 2024

Written for The Spaw by Sara Seitz, Professional Freelance Writer and Novelist with Pen and Post

Carrie Hyde is the founder, owner, and Pet Life Coach of The Spaw in Tustin, CA. Carrie’s extensive experience and understanding of pet nutrition and coaching enabled her to create The Spawdcast, a podcast dedicated to educating pet parents and pet industry professionals on ALL the options available to their pets. Her mission is to open pet owners’ eyes to the questions they may not even know to ask, to shine a light on the many myths that have been part of pet care for decades, and to offer whole solutions for their pets. Carrie Hyde is a certified pet nutritionist with the goal of helping pet parents & pet professionals with a new understanding of how to care for pets in a “whole and natural” way.