- A severe, mysterious dog illness has been found across the country, but there are no known cases in Nebraska.
- Some dog businesses are taking COVID-like precautions like wiping down surfaces and paws and checking for symptoms.
- The illness cannot spread to humans.
- Video shows the ways businesses are taking COVID precautions.
Below is a transcript of the on-air broadcast:
You may have heard about a mysterious dog illness going around. It has dog grooming business like Finishing Touches Doog Grooming taking extra precautions.
"We're pretty much treating it as if it were COVID for dogs," said Finishing Touches Manager Amanda Rauber. "We're doing anything we can to prevent spread to another animal or come in and out of the facility."
Manager Amanda Rauber says it's a busy time of year for dog groomers as people hope to get their dogs looking sharp for the holidays.
At businesses like hers, they're now also tasked with preventing the spread of a mysterious dog illness.
"When they are coming in, every dog has a clean towel, they have a clean kennel. When we take the dogs out the tub is sanitized," Rauber said.
For dog lovers, what's happening is worrying.
"Instead of being ill for maybe a day or two or a week, this seems to be going on for several weeks," said Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Center Director Dustin Loy.
Dustin Loy is the director of the Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Center. He says he doesn't know of any cases in Nebraska, but there have been in other states.
The respiratory illness can cause pneumonia, which he says has proved fatal in a some cases.
"I think there's still a mystery of if it's something that's just maybe flared up, cases of a normal thing, or something unique and unusual."
Still, there's plenty of unknown factors around it.
"That alone is concerning to a lot of dog owners," said Bub Sjostrom, a dog owner and general manager at Long Dog Fat Cat, a store that offers grooming, too.
"We're trying to be is cautious," Sjostrom said. "So we're sanitizing things more often. We don't have the water bowls out for dogs at the moment."
So expect to see spaces where dogs are around taking extra steps to prevent a worrisome illness.
And they (Ruuff Luv Doggies Daycare and Finishing Touches) say you can make a cleaning solution at home for your dogs. You can use a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water, and bleach if you dilute it to no more than 30%.
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