EVANSVILLE – Animal Care & Control is working to reopen Wednesday after its director said additional tests on two of three dogs who died under mysterious circumstances last month showed traces of both a parasite and a highly contagious virus.
Animal Control Director Missy Mosby said tests on dogs Anchor and Samson – two of the three young canines who died in short succession – came back positive for Giardia and parvovirus.
The former is a parasite dogs can contract from eating or drinking something contaminated with feces. The latter is an often-fatal condition that can attack everything from a dog’s white blood cells to its intestinal tract.
Mosby said initial SNAP tests on the third dog who died, Buddy, came back negative. But in a Tuesday Facebook post, officials said they ordered polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, testing for the other two from Highland Veterinary Clinic in Vanderburgh County. Those can probe deeper into a subject’s DNA. It’s the same type of concept used in nasal-swab tests during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only then did the parvo issue come to light. Additional tests are still pending, the Facebook post stated.
Since shutting down on Aug. 3, Mosby said PPE-draped workers have been cleaning tirelessly.
“We were doing that prior to even knowing this, but yes that is the main reason for our protocols of cleaning – just to help with any type of virus we might have had,” she said.
Those efforts will allow the shelter to at least partially reopen to the public. After getting approval from the vet, the small-dog area will reopen – with extra protocols – around 10 a.m. Wednesday. And by noon, anyone who wants to schedule a meet-and-greet with a larger dog will be able to do so, with some extra protections in place. Workers also relocated the area usually reserved for lost dogs to the front of the building.
The deaths brought a serious scare, but Mosby said the virus seems to be contained. As of Wednesday, all the other dogs were doing well.
“We had one that looked to be sick yesterday and we were scared we might be starting all over again,” she said. “We took them to the vet and they actually had an issue where they had been pregnant and the milk is drying up. So she’s on medicine.
“… It’s a kind of a mess over here. But we’ve made it work and we’ve saved lives.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville animal control: Tests on dead dogs found traces of parvo
Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
