Swine Flu and Dogs

I asked in another discussion if dogs can catch Swine Flu and it made me want to research it more myself. The information I've found is not all consistent, but here are two links that provide some good information on the topic:

http://www.aspca.org/blog/can-cats-and-dogs-catch-swine.html

http://www.waycooldogs.com/swine-flu-can-dogs-catch-it/

One source said all cold and flu viruses can be passed from human to dog. I was not aware of this. If H1N1 is a mutation of animal flu and human flu then why would dogs be safe from it? There have been no reported cases of canines with Swine Flu but it doesn't seem to rule out the possibility.

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Permalink Reply by Alice on October 21, 2009 at 7:00pm

I just realized after posting this topic came up once before and both of the sites I listed had already been referenced. Oops! Welcome to two weeks ago, right? I hate being repetitive. I'll leave it up anyway in case others missed the first discussion as I did. Plus, I'm curious to know if anyone else has heard of being able to pass a regular flu or cold to a dog as I mentioned above. The person claiming this is possible is a vet tech. ??

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Permalink Reply by Beth on October 21, 2009 at 7:55pm

I don't recall the first thread either, but my memory is not what it used to be!

I have been told that most regular diseases (those not spread by water contamination or food-borne illnesses) cannot be passed between dogs and people. That being said, we had a labrador retriever when I was a teenager that seemed to get listless and throw up mucus just about every time anyone in the house had a bad cold or something. It sure seemed to US that he was getting what we had. It seemed to be way too regular an occurrence to just be a coincidence.

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Permalink Reply by Edward and Gemima on October 21, 2009 at 9:51pm

Ok, now I'm just worrying more..........

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Permalink Reply by Meredith and Paisley on October 22, 2009 at 7:43am

This is just what I have come to understand from some personal research and my personal understanding of viruses, but the swine flu was originally passed from an animal to a person, thus making it zoonotic, and why it was originally called "swine" flu. With that said though, pigs and humans have very similar anatomy and this makes it more likely for diseases to pass back and forth between pigs and people. Dogs and people are not quite as similar and so while it may be possible for it to pass back to any animal besides a pig since it was once zoonotic, there isn't any evidence of such happening yet. It is also very difficult to predict if it will pass from humans to any animal since viruses do not always act predictable in this way and any virus can mutate over time. For example, "Birds can also get flu. So can horses. But although humans can, in rare cases, catch bird flu, it doesn't then spread from person to person. Humans can't catch horse flu. Dogs, however, can catch horse flu."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2009187105_flupig07.html