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Writer's pictureAngel Nieves

Bacteria & Viruses Outbreaks On Pets




Catherine Love is a Veterinarian with special training in infectious

diseases. Mostly viruses, she has a biomedical technology degree is where

she got most of that training. Catherine started her career in elephants and rhinos studying

diseases that impacted those species as well as her conservation efforts and as she came back State Side started having kids and not being able to travel all over the world she have shifted back to her first love which was emergency medicine and critical care.




TRANSCRIPT


Angel- Hello everybody welcome back to the Y

pet detective show I'm your host Angel Nez and we have something very very

special to talk about today um um it's contagious on animals it's um two

viruses and a bacteria which is the Triple E the strep um strep

virus and strep zoo and the other one is the bird flu on cats I have a very very

special guest but before I do I just want to mention everybody my what I do

is I do prior investigations and I'm a pet investigator that's my specialty and

because a lot of pets are been missing so I even rode a little thin book for

people who understand how to protect their pets is right here you could get it on Amazon do you know where your pets

are and it has to do with how to protect your pets what to do when you lose your

pets what you do when you find somebody else's pet you don't keep it and you know that's the most

important because if we follow those rules and we follow and protect our animals and do not leave it

unattended you will knock down the lost and stolen dogs could be to

90% so please get the book is on Amazon for you know where your pets are today's

topic like I said is going to be on um bacterias and viruses that's

contagious it's been around for a while but it's becoming more contagious because we leave our

pets outside our I got a special guest her name is Dr Katherine

Reed she's uh she's up in the west coast she earned doctor degree in

veteran medicine from the University of Wisconsin and a German PhD equivalent

bio medal technology from the University of

Berlin he works in West Coast and also in the east coast

in newor York she does mainly do now is emergencies and she's very

special so hello


Catherine- hi how's it going


Angel- how you doing I learn to ask you one thing I'm

trying to get this off there he goes um explain more by yourself because I read

something and it was words that I did not understand at all so I'm not going to say something I do not understand I

don't mess it up


Catherine- so short version is I'm a Vetinarian I have special training in U infectious

diseases mostly viruses I have a biomedical uh technology degree is where

I got most of that training I started my career in elephants and rhinos studying

uh diseases that impacted those species as well as our conservation efforts um and as I came back State Side started

having kids and not being able to travel all over the world I um have shifted

back to my first love which was emergency medicine and critical care


Angel- you're a gymnast


Catherine- and I'm a gymnast just gymnastics yeah


Angel- that was amazing that's

great that's great news H the thing is now is we have three things that people are afraid

of which is contagious um which is the strep Zoo the bird flu

and the E virus so I mean people more afraid of

because now they're getting contagious with the pets so let's start off from the beginning now let's start off from

each one let's start off with um the Eastern equin


Catherine- so I will say none of these are

new viruses SL bacteria new new con new components um

ehv has been around since 1800s I think it was first discovered in

Massachusetts um it is technically a vector born disease so yes it can infect

horses most people do not show symptoms even if they're positive for having the virus in their system um we think

they're the ones that are susceptible either have genetic predisposition or

they have immune suppression there's typically only about six cases a year year I think we're seeing a rise in ehv

more because of the mosquito population we blame that on a lot of different things I think climate control or

climate change is a big one so a lot of your vectors are not getting killed off in the wintertime we have longer warmer

Seasons um so that they're breeding longer we've got bigger mosquito

populations uh we've got more different diverse species of mosquitoes with the

tiger mosquito coming on from Asia so it's just we've got more vectors and

more opportunity to spread the disease so I think we're seeing it more but it's not anything new I mean my horse I've

had him he just turned 35 by the way but I've had him since he was three and

we've been vaccinating for all of the equin and sephtis is there's Venezuelan

eastern western um we've and West Niles is kind of included in that Viral um in

sephtis category um they're Togo viruses or tongo viruses so they're um we do

have vaccines for them and and the big control is controlling the vector but also making sure our ecoins are

vaccinated but you just hit it to the point vaccination they have to be

vaccinated you cannot skip it right I mean not unless you want a sick horse

because it used to be when I grew up in Tennessee you only had to vaccinate for for like the eastern incilius and over

the years the like I said the mosquito population has moved and brought the viruses with it so now all the way up to

Maine the recommendation is that you vaccinate for all three so even the Venezuelan I think I don't know exactly

but I think I was in college when they started recommending that we vaccinate not just for Eastern but also for

Venezuelan and then Western was added on and now you vaccinate for all three Nationwide and I'm pretty sure that's a

global Thing by now especially with the horses moving you know with you know the

horse industry the entertainment industry whether it's race horses or show horses they're going all over the

place so their exposure is not limited to just what's prevalent in their area how about dogs and

cats as far as I know dogs and cats are not susceptible to it um I'm sure it's

so viruses and bacteria typically tend to be species specific so that's that's

kind of a generalization and a majority there's always exceptions to the rules and the reason that that that's how it

is is they kind of grow together Evolution through Evolution and they develop a relationship where they know

the system of their host and then they're able to replicate and keep themselves alive there's always

that species or that individual that's so naive they have no protections

against a certain virus um and then they become susceptible but that's not

usually the host relationship um so I

think you can always find exceptions and a lot of times it has to do also with

the individual or species having AE a predisposition to being

susceptible so because the reason I'm asking this it's mosquito mosquito

actually b a dog or cat or any kind of animals yes the biggest issue I think with

mosquitoes we have in the dog and the cat population is heart rooms so microf area so that's a

parasite that's passed through them and that has become a thing that was just a problem in the South and now we're

seeing it well well above that kind of Mason Dixon line up into including Maine

see that's not that's not on the news so they'll be probably by next month they probably be talking about it something

well it it's kind of happened over the the years you know I think we talked about this in the green room before we

started but in and things have just changed

right 30 years ago when I was in high school there was no such thing as a no kill shelter right you had dog pounds

and unfortunately dog pounds resulted in a lot of euthanasia and a consequence of

that is we had a lot of Disease Control because most of these dogs dos were either running free or wild or not being

taken care of which is why they ended up in the pound and they tended to be the ones that had the diseases now that

we've shifted more into a rehoming model we have more dogs that

are kept in communal environments for extended period of time and a lot of those dogs are coming in infected with

diseases and having to be nursed back to health that also then gives the opportunity and the unfortunate

consequence of where seeing more community acquired diseases and they're being spread and the distribution of our

disease pattern is changing because now you've got dogs in Georgia that are being shipped to Maine um because there

may be more resources to care for them there but now they're taking their heartworms and their diseases with them

wherever they go so there's less of this cut off zones that we used to have 20 30

years ago um so we've had to change our perception of these diseases and how we

control them now it's kind of a blanket National recommendation where it used to

be prevalence right we didn't have a whole lot of heartworms out west um and I still occasionally have clients come

here to Arkansas and their dogs aren't on heartworm prevention they're like we don't know what you're talking about and

I was like well you need to because your dogs gonna be dead in three years if you don't so um those type of things are

changing


Angel- now you got these pets dogs cats and reptiles and dinosaurs all

these animals coming from different countries it's not only from state to state they're coming from Afghanistan

they're coming from Puerto Rico from Mexico and actually from here they're

shifting for like for example this is an example from Georgia that sent it to Canada so now we're g it problems over

there in Canada you know which comes back to the next that you're talking about the

transferring is the strip Zoo bacteria they're closing down

shelters because of the dogs getting this they don't want to be this very contagious they don't want to spread it

out


Catherine- that's also one that's not very new um it's just highly highly contagious

and again I think that's a consequence of our new model where unfortunately

these animals are having to stay in group environments um I think the best

solution to that is probably training and education for a lot of these

shelters to have an A a clean or a clear intake facility where these animals are

isolated before they get sick and are added to general population and then they have a a chance to again make sure

they're clean of diseases before they're adopted out into the population I think

most of our highquality well run shelters are doing that um but often

what we run into is some of our smaller shelters have a big heart and and a and

a you know Big Goal to help these animals they just don't necessarily understand or have enough knowledge

about protecting from a community acquired diseases and making sure that

you have dogs that are the the new incoming dogs are isolated the right appropriate amount of time we're

checking and looking for early detection of infections and testing and clearing

before we're adding to the population and then double-checking before we're putting them out into the world um we

had a flush of flu come through here last year and it all came back to a

shelter that several smaller shelters had gone there to take dogs out of a

bigger shelter in in Carolina and I don't even remember if it was south or north um but they all kind of went to

the same place it was a shelter that had kind of gotten overwhelmed and they were taking dogs out of that shelter and

bringing them to smaller shelters here in Arkansas and we had a ton of influenza because of that and again

that's not having the right kind of isolation set up when you bring new members into a population before you add

them into your existing population is there any vaccine for the

St not that I know of but I could be wrong I do mostly emergency medicine so

I can be wrong on some of the GP things that have changed heard wasn't that's why I'm asking I

mean this is I don't know of one so how can you prevent this for your pet to get

itan it's only on dogs or as far as I know it's only dogs it's like us getting

strapped too right um but it's it's really managing the sick ones need to be

isolated until they're cleared and then you know because at least it does have antibacterial options like we can treat

it it's not like a virus so


Angel- wow then um oh before that I was going

to ask you about the mosquitoes um people would be worried that the dogs will get the Triple E and cats and

whatever but um this um if you want to put spray in

the dog for the mosquito sprays or the cat it's not the one they use at home right


Catherine- it's got to be a no I wouldn't I

wouldn't spray them with off so a lot of your flee and tick repellants also repel

mosquitoes especially for cats things like revolution has a mosquito repellent in it um dogs is a little harder

um off the top of my head Breo maybe I I'd have to look like

again I don't do general practice so I'm not other than I use bravecto in my dogs

but that's just CU convenience I can't remember every month so I do it every three months but um I a lot of it's just

environmental control too uh like we have a pond Outback and so we struggle

with mosquitoes you get the mosquito baits you can put them in there it'll kill the larvae it's a safe bacteria

because my dogs drink out of the pond too so it kills the mosquitoes I don't have to worry about it poisoning my fish

or my turtles or my dogs um but it kills the mosquito larva we also added um uh

gabia I think they're called and Minnows to our pond because they'll eat mosquito

larv uh so there's natural things you can do there's also mosquito baits you

can make sure you don't have stagnant water uh we have a filter and a waterfall on ours to keep the water

moving because mosquitoes don't like moving water so there are things you can do on your environment to lower your

risk of having mosquitoes um obviously you can't get rid of all of them um you

know not letting your dog out at Dusk and Dawn because that's when mosquitoes are most active um even even other

natural things you can do is plant flowers that attract dragon flies because they like to eat mosquitoes too

get a bat house bats love to eat mosquitoes there's there's things you can do naturally um I think some of the

flea intake preventions for dogs also repel mosquitoes but again we're talking about repel not prevent so there's

nothing that absolutely prevents anybody from getting bit unless you take a bath

and de but um definitely don't recommend you doing that to your dogs but uh so we

are still talking about repel versus prevention so when you start talking

about lowering risk layering the things you do to consistently lower those risk

are important you can't just rely on one thing so yes put Revolution on your cat

maybe don't let them go outside because they like to kill song birds anyway but that's just my Soap Box um but if he's

going to be an indoor outdoor Kitty obviously re ution maybe keep them in uh

during night and don't let him out until after uh Dawn so he's less suceptible to

mosquito bites um yeah and then do all the environmental things around the

house there's those are the I would just layer it you can't just rely on one

thing


Angel- true and that that I've been saying this for a long time I mean so

many things you could get out of animals unattended outside they're very curious

and you know we're talking about predators and all that stuff but we also got to talk about bacteria and viruses

that could take also and now that you mention about cats going outside and killing birds because that's what they

do they you know they Predators um the bird flu

virus is coming up now they're saying that the cats I guess it's a food chain

reaction


Catherine- I guess I don't know what it is what's going on with that well and that's the same for humans right it's

contact with any infected bird so bird flu is huge and very impactful in our

food animal industry you get bird flu that goes through a chicken coup you know that can send Tyson very close

to numbers they don't want to see uh it can also drive up our food prices a lot

of times they have to do Mass exterminations to get the viruses under control just because they spread so fast

it's hard to get it out of population um wild birds obviously can get bird flu

too uh that's a big issue with a lot of our large chicken farms is they can

either wild birds can bring the disease into a clean chicken farm or if the chicken farm gets infected they can

spread it to wild birds and then Farmers that are farming these ver birds become

exposed and and infected either directly from the bird or from the contaminated

environment and then so animals that are predating the birds are then susceptible

and yes namely cats I don't know how P pigs too pigs and cats are the ones I

know that have been documented to actually get sick and um significantly

sick from the bird flu I don't think cats as much and then obviously humans have have been exposed as

well or susceptible and what can we do to

prevent I know it's a dumb question way but so that's a harder one because it's

a virus and not only is it a virus but influenza is a retrovirus so we talk about getting the flu vaccine

everybody's like ah why would I get the flu vaccine it doesn't work it is a prediction right so we have a ton of

really smart people all across the world at the CDC at arasmus MC there's

probably a bunch of them I don't want to leave anybody out but they spend their lives predicting how these viruses tend

to mutate and what the next mutation's going to be based on all the different

pressures in the different areas um and they're always scanning and surveilling

to see what comes I think the last one was what H1 or N1 H5 or H1 N5 forget how

they name them um but it is a prediction unfortunately because we don't know you

know mutations are random um so so we don't actually know how it's going to

mutate so the idea is they have a bunch of algorithms that predict what's the

most likely random mutation that's going to happen and is that going to change

the effectiveness of the flu vaccine and then you go get your flu vaccine um

there is more than one flu vaccine obviously we have swine flu we have bird flu um we have just regular influenza

so pred iting and being accurate every year I think is an unrealistic

expectation it is better than nothing right um and there should be at least

some cross protection meaning you may get sick even though you've been vaccinated you may just not die right so

the two things that vaccines accomplish or we try to do three we don't always

get all three one we want to prevent spread if we can not all viruses will

prevent uh bacteria and or v um sorry not all vaccines will prevent the

organism from replicating and spreading but that is ultimately a goal of a vaccine the other one is to prevent the

person who is infected from getting sick so ramping up your immune system so that

even if you are exposed to the organism you already have antibodies and

protective uh components in place with your immune system to protect you from that organism and you don't actually get

sick from it and the third thing was what we want to do is if we can't do those first two things we can at least

lower their morbidity meaning how severe is that organism going to affect my body

we see that a lot with covid right you may still get covid but we saw a lot less significant disease and a lot less

people dying with the vaccine so I think that is a big management of expectations

people hear the word vaccine and think oh we're going to eradicate this disease and we're never going to get sick that's

not actually what every vaccine accomplishes sometimes we just don't want to get too sick right so sometimes

the the minimal advantage of a vaccine is that you have enough immunity that you at

least have lower what we call morbidity or severity of the disease and hopefully

you were lowering that death rate so it's definitely that there is a

vaccine for blue for birth flu um again that is a food and Industry

disease I don't think so typically when we get like new castles or or bird flu

the the mechanism of action I know people don't want to hear it is eradication so they usually go in and

kill the infected animals so the best thing to do is don't

keep your pets unattended leave your cat in the house don't let them roll I'm a big proponent for that because I work in

the ER I see the cats coming in that have been attacked by something hit by something fell out of something and they

are the number one killer of song birds there are plenty of things you can do in your house to keep your bird your birds

sorry your cats happy and safe there are many cat diseases we can't protect them

from FIP HIV those are so that feline

infectious peritonitis is a still a death sentence I know there's a new drug out there that's not FDA approved that

we've been getting really good results from but it is far from being a cure or

you know giving these cats anything close to back to their normal life and the best way to prevent those is keep

them inside so they're not fighting and spreading disease


Angel- there's one thing I want to mention that has nothing to do with this

part but we're talking about vaccines how important it is and it's rabies and

the reason why I bring it up is had once had a case uh lady she had a dog right a

big dog probably a shepherd and um the dog ran off got a missing dog that's why

they called me for and when I went and I spoke to her she told me that the dog

does not have his rabies shots I said but why you got to give the

rabies shots yeah but I never thought the dog the dog never leaves a house I said it's gone now

you know what I mean and we do have Wildlife that do have rabies we hear it

all the time in New York City a skunk with rabies a raccoon with rabies and if

this a bats and if this dog gets bitten it's not protected correct


Catherine- it's also illegal so

the federal government is the one vaccine the federal government regulates is rabies and it's mostly because of

human health that's their driving force but so a healthy animal population

equals a healthy human population and one part of the rabies story that people don't realize is you have a dog that's

not vaccinated either never been vaccinated or not up to- date in vaccines and up to date is within the

last three years or cats cats are a big one right most people my cat never goes outside I

can't get him to the vet no vaccines cat gets sick comes into the ER cat bites

one of my employees federal government says I have to kill your cat Cut its head off and send it off to the lab to

prove it doesn't have yes it's the only way to test for rabies so I tell people

all the time at minimum if you don't want your pet to have to and I've had to do that more

times than I ever want to remember um at least vaccinate for rabies as a kitten as a puppy every

three years is minimum required it's a $10 vaccine you go to the vaccine clinics at minimum if your pet ever

bites somebody you can avoid them being euthanized that's dogs and cats has dogs

and C yes and people have domestic animals that erotic exotic animals that PO needs vaccines and they

don't do it because they're afraid to bring it out or they think they don't need it so exotic animal regulations are

a little different um like I have two possums uh they're legal here in

Arkansas and they're everywhere and these were and then babies um so we

actually don't have to vaccinate them for rabies possums have a really strong immune system and harbor almost no

diseases except for a parasite here or there um so but raccoons on the other

hand they are susceptible to dog and cat diseases so not only do you need rabies

you need all the dog series and all the cat Series so understanding what species

you have um and knowing one from a legal perspective in

your state are you legally allowed to have that animal and if you are what is the state regulations on vaccines um if

you're keeping something you're not legally allowed to have out of a moral obligation to that animal's Health and

Welfare I would at least do some investigation zoos are a great resource

you don't have to tell them you have an animal just ask like what are they susceptible to I love um this is one of

my little pet peeves uh everybody wants to call and ask me every basic question

which I am more than happy to be a plethora of information but then these are the same people that go out and get

an animal don't educate themselves on anything end up in a bad situation that

either costs a lot of money or may or even worse cost the animal its life but then they know every Kobe Bryant stat

the day he was born what color the weather was because they stay on Google and they overin themselves about things

that aren't important but then they have another animals life in their hands and they can't at minimum go on Google and

find good sources uh Spruce vet or is a great resource it's kind of like our

version of Mayo Clinic Cornell University has a lot of information that you can Google just basic information

about diseases and all sorts of things there are tons of

vet like previewed peer-reviewed information out there that you can

collect stay away from the forums stay away from the Breeders and all their opinions they are not qualified it's

like you get right stay away from Facebook you know unless you know the person's personal qualifications and I'm

sorry owning a pet for 20 years is not a qualification um they they have any kind

of you know licensed cvts great resources most of them um you know

they've been in the industry they have medical knowledge they have basic understanding of things that need to be

done for husbandry but even me as a veterinarian and I have exotic

experience you know I specialize in elephants and rhinos for years however

when I found a river cooter which is a turtle a aquatic turtle in the road that

gotten hit by a car first thing I did was call my colleague at the zoo to say

Hey how do I anesthetize this thing right because that's not something I do every day so you can't just take any

knowledge that you find on the internet but there is plenty of resources a lot of these vets you can also call them

right but it is there's a plenty of information out there to self-educate um and and get good quality

information and not just believe every Forum or every random person that told you something you wouldn't do that for

your kids you wouldn't do that for your sick mother in the hospital and you shouldn't do it for your

pets


Angel- because the reason why I asked about exotic is because

I don't know if it's an animal but Upstate they found somebody had the sloth

flu oh yeah so I'm thinking about the first thing is that animal which in a

way it is kind of poisonous it bites you with so much

bacteria well that's that's that's what I saw in YouTube but

um yeah but uh the the sloth I mean what

is sloth flu


I don't know so I I mean anything that says flu

tells me it's influenza so I would think it's a virus um and then I would have to

look up what its susceptibility is outside its species um is it like the

bird flu and it's just in a sloth so they call it sloth flu we have a lot of diseases out there that are misnamed

like chickenpox is not a pox virus so I would I would honestly have to do some

investigation on that one um I haven't heard I love sloth


Angel- only one case there's

only one case it came out like very quietly in the newspaper and it says sloth flu who will have a sloth Upstate

but this in New York they had tigers in in projects you know what I mean so um I

mean but this is how they bring all these viruses and everything right the bacteria because they're taking exotic

animals and they're bringing here even dogs and cats from different countries and bring it here or we bring it over

there and it's like changing like you said the environment of that area right


Catherine- yeah [Music] so I looked it up


Angel- I was gonna say you're looking up to sloth flu


Catherine- now yes and it it says it's it's a it's another mosquito born disease it's similar to

ding fever like Zea virus malaria those those all in the same category um and

it's a flu like fever in and infected people along with headaches muscles aches stiffness um I don't know that it

actually comes from a sloth it may just they just may call it that hold on let me see I'm on the

CDC so then the mosquitoes are the most dangerous animals on

Earth bring all these viruses and sickness they they are a a big Vector

yes mosquitoes sandflies ticks fleas they all love you know um the plague is

all flee driven disease

um I don't think it comes from fleas I mean I don't think it comes from sloth

think they just call it the sloth virus maybe it makes you really like

me it makes you sloth likee but it doesn't sound like it comes from a sloth

I think about an animal is it's going like m is five miles an hour you know very

slow pouch of V infection

I yeah it's like zika it actually causes microen cytis if you are pregnant when

you get infected there's a lot of diseases out there okay here it is the first wild

animal found to carry the virus for the howler monkeys in 1960 and then it was isolated ated in the pel throat throated

sloth in Brazil so it is from animals the main host of the of the virus has

yet to be identified so those are not the main host either uh primates and three toad sloth

have been found to carry it but they don't seem to be the primary host H so they disease well but that

person could have just gone to Brazil doesn't necessarily have to illegally


Angel- all right so let's wrap this up you know

very informative he people please listen to this share with others you know you

want to know what's going on you're hear it in the newspaper but you don't get a lot of information as it did with with Katherine

so um please watch this show um thank you very much very much

and um people Please spay and nutuer your pets and do you know where your pets are






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