Comments on Dog Flu: Marketing, Fear, and Uncertainty

Dr,,
I get your news letter and recall your describing dogs biting at water in reaction to a vaccine (rabies or another). The article appeared a in a news letter dated a year or two ago. I need to find out if a dog can be made aggressive in reaction to a vaccine. I’m trying to help a friend’s dog & I suspect your article applies to him. I need an explanation that I can forward to his guardian. Can you help me?

My 2-year-old yellow lab started coughing Tuesday afternoon when we picked her up from the kennel where she'd been boarded for a week.
She coughed and vomited all night, took her to the vet early Wed morning. They treated her like patient zero, isolation room, etc.
Talked me into doing $150 blood test to confirm flu, and then put her on cough suppressant and antibiotics.
Sure enough, it is flu. Thought the cough suppressant was working at first, but she has taken a turn for the worse, and it's now Saturday morning, and I was up every 30 min last night to clean up vomit (mostly mucus).
The coughing and retching is horrible. Poor thing is so miserable and lethargic -- she must be in so much pain.
I'm feeding her wet food, and she's still eating and drinking, but is vomiting up a good portion because of the non-stop coughing. She barely has the energy to squat to go to the bathroom outside -- her legs are very shaky.
I'm going to call the vet again in three minutes when they open, but does anyone have advice? She's definitely gotten worse over the last four days.

Another great article, Doc; as well as the comments. This made me think of the deathbed utterance by Louis Pasteur, "The germ is nothing. The terain is everything."
Pasteur finally got it right. It's not the "nasties" that are of primary concern; it's living healthy to build a strong immune system and vital force that isn't done in by the nasties in our world.
That said, big pharma and vaccine-junky vets are more than happy to push more vaccinations and drugs; it's more money for both. Sadly, fear will motivate many people to vaccinate or use drugs instead of investigating for themselves. If I'm remembering correctly, the bordatella vaccine only covers 2 of the 40 possible agents. It's very ineffective and far from being safe.
If there's a bug going around, we increase the foods and herbs that strengthen the immune system and kill off the nasties. Echinacea, garlic, lemon, lime, olive leaf extract, oil of oregano, etc. are some that we incorporate into our diet and the dogs' too. So far, our pack of little dogs has never been ill, and our two oldest are 8 and 9 yrs. They've all suffered vaccine damage so we'll never again vaccinate.

We aren't in the hot bed, but we do run a Dog Boarding Center in Central IL and it's been question after question... and quite honestly, I wish there were more articles floating around like this. I've spoken with our vets and they have the same views as you and it's outstanding how a simple headline can affect so many people, so quickly. However, I'm a firm believer in safety and keeping dogs away from illness, but we've not had any sign of it and secondly, we run a very sociable, very open-based program. Big dogs, little dogs, young and old. They love it and so do all their owners. The great news is that our facility is capable of being in open air quite frequently, along with the procedures we have in order to protect from ANY illness, infections, etc. The thing I wish people could understand is that this FLU OUTBREAK isn't anything out of the normal. Quite honestly, we have everyone on Bordetella and the funny thing, everyone thinks that's the same thing and in January we had our run with an illness that went around. No one died, but quite a few got sick.. It wouldn't surprise me if that was some kind of weird strain. I feel there will ALWAYS be something going around, it's just the fact that the news is hyping this, the people are biting because in America, most people (not all) care more about animals, than their humans. Nothing wrong with that, but the News knows how to act and how to keep acting... or spreading fear, when it's not needed.

THANK YOU!
As the general manager of a dog daycare and boarding facility in the Chicagoland Suburbs- thank you for laying it out! This article will be shared on our social media for sure. The amount of damage this scare has done on the animal industry is just crazy, and the amount of phone calls I have gotten from terrified and frustrated owners complaining that their dogs are going stir-crazy at home is even worse.

I picked up a dog at the Austin, TX Animal control. She had been vaccinated and spayed. She immediately came down with a cough as her immune system had been compromised by being lost for 3 months. My Service Dog shared a water bowl with her and he started coughing, his nose became congested with a yellowish substance, his eyes watered, he was lethargic and lost his appetite. In 45 years of raising dogs I've never seen a "dog cold" but the symptoms were exactly that, sneezing, coughing, congestion just like a cold. 10 days with good food laced with Tumeric & Ginger and they are fine.

i consider myself a nonconformist when it comes to the care of my pets. Most have been rescued and I never needed to vaccinate. I always titered. When needed, my holistic vet would try homeopathic and herbal remedies along with acupuncture before more conventional therapies, which were never really necessary. However, I live in Chicago and work with dogs. I would call this an epidemic! It has destroyed the dog care industry here. Most of the dogs I know have gotten this flu. Thankfully none have died, but it is terrifying. Why? Because the dogs get so sick so quickly. We did all the things you described above to prevent it from entering our facility. Unfortunately, one started coughing and we went from boarding 66 dogs to 1 in 6 days! It is worse than it is described. I think some would not have recovered without IV fluids or oxygen tents. Many are so weak that they can't eat. It lasts for weeks. My dogs have been quarantined for 3 weeks with no end in sight. I am lucky I have a small yard, most people here don't. They have to walk their dogs, 3 dogs on my block got it from walking around the neighborhood, not meeting other dogs. I don't watch the news because I hate the fear mongering too. But this time, I think is necessary and urgent that we get the word out! Trust me, we absolutely do not want this to spread!!!!

This is all good & well & I agree with alot this article, but when you actually OWN a boarding facility, things are different. Facility owners do EVERYTHING they can to keep things like canine cough, giardia, canine influenza, feline URI, etc OUT OF THEIR facilities but customers (and some vets) still want to blame the facility for "giving their dog or cat" a sickness. It's something we fight & worry about everyday. Like we can somehow control an airborne virus. Schools and hospitals can't seem to control them with humans but we kennel owners somehow should. It seems people have common sense about their kids but not their pets. I try not to make my clients fearful but they also should be informed.

I'm dealing with this dog flu right now. My son came for a visit on the weekend from southern wisconsin and didn't realize his dog was in the early stages of it. Within hours of his visit my dogs started to sneeze. I cant believe how contagious this is. So far it seems like a mild form, my dogs are still eating and all are active. I am concerned about the nasel congestion. One of my dogs has a lot and is coughing more than the other two. Is there something I can give him to minimize the congestion such as benedryl? Its hard to stand by and do nothing even tho I know their immune systems will take care of this

I have a 12 month old show dog who is entered in several shows coming up. He is now healthy and vaccinated for the usual dog diseases, including kennel cough back in November but caught a strain of it anyway when he
arrived here in December. We live in California. Should I keep him home from the shows I spent hundreds of dollars to enter?

What is the non-toxic means to keep heartworms away?

Thank you so much for this information.

I have many friends in the Chicagoland area who have experienced this personally. One of the deaths was friends HEALTHY 7 yr old Bulldog. Another friends healthy 4 yr old lab was in the hospital for 3 days as a result of this virus. Sure, many dogs can and do fight it off but do worry for MY dogs. I titer, feed raw, avoid chemicals, etc but I have an almost 14 year old Bernese at home who is recovering from liver failure and an immunocompromised 10 yr old BMD. Not to mention my two other seniors. I also have two young, healthy dogs who frequently come to work with me as I am a vet tech. What would you advise?

In the midst of all the media hype over the canine influenza, we have continued our business as usual, with some minor changes. We are no longer allowing our boarding dogs to socialize with the daycare dogs until this blows over. We have still not had one case of it. We are not requiring the vaccines and have asked our customers to please keep their pets home for 2 weeks if they decide to get them vaccinated.

OMG! How tragic is this terribly obvious fear-mongering and marketing hype! I had no idea about any dog flu since I don't participate in social media.
It's clearly and obviously always marketing hype by the vaccine manufacturers whether geared towards humans or animals. Another way to guarantee billions in profits for the vaccine manufacturers as well as all those that get sick as a result of being injected with live viruses, bacteria and toxic chemicals who'll be put on meds, fattening the wallets of the shareholders of the big pharma cartel.
Sadly, I have many acquaintances and certain family members who have dogs that are under the care of conventional vets and those dogs suffer all kinds of hideous diseases and they die prematurely causing untold agony for their owners, not to mention multiple thousands of dollars in vet bills. The brainwashing called marketing is so effective that people don't give any thought to what the real causes are of their animals' illnesses.
Like the cancer quackery protocols. You treat a dis-ease by attacking the physical body and destroying it in the name of trying to cure the illness instead of getting to the core of the belief or trauma and working from the inside out.
If only the patients were referred to a homeopath or other alternative practitioner before their life force is so terribly damaged and diminished by the typical insane protocols of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation that their own body becomes unable to bring itself back to health.
Speaking of insane protocols, click here if you want to see what passed for medical protocols in the not too distant past: http://www.cracked.com/article_15669_the-10-most-insane-medical-practices-in-history.html. It may appear that we've come a long way since those times, but have we really? In retrospect, we are shocked by what the public accepted as medical treatment as a result of the hype and marketing back then, just as those forward thinking folks are shocked at what passes for medical treatment today. Thank goodness for choices.
Thank you again, Dr. Falconer, for addressing the topic of vaccinations and marketing.

Thank goodness I'm old enough to remember stories my Grandmother told me of growing up on a farm with my great grandparents. She told me dogs didn't get sick. They didn't get cancer and they certainly didn't get "human" illnesses like the flu. They ate scraps from the farm table and from butchering. They didn't live indoors but they enjoyed healthy lives without vaccinations or medications or even vets. Veterinarians were for the livestock. Dogs didn't die before their second decade if they weren't hurt in an accident. Things really changed when people started treating them like human children instead of dogs. Of course we haven't done that great with our human children in the past few decades either, but that's a whole other topic, isn't it? :-)

I was hoping your next blog would touch base with this canine flu. Even though I could guess how you would address this situation, I still wanted to gear your thoughts.
Thanks always for the blogs and all the information on vitalanimal! I really appreciate it.

I've only seen and read fear mongering and panic leading to irrational assumptions and decisions. Always reminds me of Chicken Little. Foolish statements like ending all imports from China. I might agree but not because of flu...
You can share this article and Dr. Dodds', but I think some thrive on drama and don't want to see logic or that it's about yet another vaccine push. Thanks, Doc!