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Comment by Laura Rochette on January 28, 2014 at 10:13am

My vet/day care facility here in NH has been posting notices about this for almost a year now. I've had Lucy vaccinated.

Comment by Melissa and Franklin! on January 28, 2014 at 12:29am

As others have said it is a disease that jumped from horses to dogs by greyhounds being fed raw horse meat. The 100% fatal version was in the very very beginning of the mutation and the disease caused hemorrhaging in the lungs. It has mutated (as viruses often do) to a less virulent strain and now is mostly seen with symptoms almost indistinguishable from kennel cough. Last reports I saw it was not in the general population in many parts of the country but was found in pockets usually in relation to racing greyhounds moving from state to state. I used to work as a vet tech and it was never recommended unless your dog traveled or boarded a lot and I currently work at a racing greyhound rescue (the hotbed of the flu virus) and we have never seen a case of the virus nor do we vaccinate our dogs. This is just another case of the media blowing something completely out of proportion. 

Comment by Priss, Charlie & Kaylee (PK) on January 27, 2014 at 3:51pm

That's really cool. There is a lot of interesting and important work on this and other canine diseases.

Comment by Linda on January 27, 2014 at 3:01pm

I have an online friend I've know for years, she's in NE and works at a research and development facility.  This is what she had to say about it.

"Canine influenza is a relatively new disease. It is very closely related to a horse influenza. It crossed the species barrier at a race track in southern Florida. A horse died of horse flu. The raw or undercooked meat was fed to racing greyhounds. One of those dogs was the first dog to get canine influenza. It spreads easily between dogs and is spreading fast.
There is a vaccine for canine influenza. It was developed by someone I work with. The entire US supply is made in the facility where I work."

Comment by Priss, Charlie & Kaylee (PK) on January 27, 2014 at 2:26pm

Last year, I was able to talk to Dr. Colin Parrish, who studies CIV at Cornell University. The canine influenza virus has been around since since the early 2000s after the virus probably "jumped" from race horses to greyhounds in Florida and spread from there. CIV is mostly an issue in shelters and pounds rather than than boarding kennels, due to the high turnover of unvaccinated dogs and incubation period. While it's good to be aware of it and I am a proponent of preventative vaccination, it is not as scary as many other dog diseases. So far there is no record of CIV infecting people, but several people are concerned about it's potential to "jump" again.

Comment by Beverly Butler Redford & Tucker on January 27, 2014 at 11:20am

It has been around in the West for a while.  It is quite dangerous-almost 100% fatal.  I've been vaccinating my boys for it since I got them in 2011.

Comment by Jane Christensen on January 26, 2014 at 11:20pm

No, I haven't heard of this...always seems to be something new...