Pneumonia in dogs with acute, severe vomiting and diarrhoea in summer 2019
I am starting to wonder if there’s a new infectious agent causing acute gastro-entero-colitis in dogs around here (northern England) recently. Firstly, there seems to be an upsurge in numbers of cases: especially those which take a week or more to recover. None of those which I’ve seen were markedly neutropaenic or tested positive on Parvo Snap tests. I believe that almost all of them have been vaccinated.
Secondly, three of them have had concurrent pneumonia on ultrasonography:
Case 1: a subpleural lesion in the right lung with characteristic features of pneumonia: hypoechoic consolidation with serrated margins, intralesional gas densities and surrounding B lines. This combination is termed the ‘shred’ or ‘fractal’ sign and has a 95%+ specificity for pneumonia in people.
Case 2: another, unexpected, pneumonia in a dog with severe vomiting and diarrhoea
Case 3: …yet another
It’s possible that this could be inhalation pneumonia. But I’ve been checking the lungs of most dogs that I’ve scanned for several years now without seeing this in such numbers (these 3 cases have all been in the last 3 weeks). It could be ‘canine seasonal illness’; whatever that is.
https://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/171/16/406.2
I can’t find any specific reference to lung involvement in SCI cases: but, as a severe systemic illness, it seems conceivable. It’s certainly the right time of year.
