Illness continues to kill greyhounds at track

A cough. A runny nose. A fever.

In most animals, as with most humans, it shouldn't be a problem.

But for dogs at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track this week, the symptoms have been a death sentence.

A day after the Bonita Springs gaming facility announced it would join others around the state in a quarantine that is hoped to stop the spread of a virulent virus plaguing greyhounds this summer, two more of the dogs there died from the infection.

That brings the death total to 17, the same number that died after a smoldering fire at the track a year ago this June.

Kristen Ploska, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, said a total of 19 dogs have died statewide from the upper respiratory infection.

The tracks are doing all they can to stop the spread of the illness, she said, by limiting movement of dogs from one racing facility to another.

The only other thing to do is wait for the virus to take its course, she said.

Veterinarians from the University of Florida are conducting tests to determine the strain affecting the animals. Generally, ailments of the type seen in the dogs are referred to as "kennel cough" because it tends to strike in facilities where a large number of dogs come and go.

That ailment typically isn't fatal, though, according to veterinary experts.

The Merck Veterinary Manual calls kennel cough a "mild, self-limiting disease."

Notable for the dry, hacking cough it causes, the upper respiratory illness can turn into a deadly pneumonia, but most often only in puppies or in older or disabled dogs, the manual says.

Good nutrition, hygiene and rest are curative, it adds.

The Bonita Springs track officials said this week that to give its dogs time to rest, races would be cut back to between eight and 11 daily for at least a week. Today's matinee race has been canceled.

For advocates like Sherry Farris, of the Greyhound Protection League, that may not be enough.

Informed of the death of the dogs this week, Farris took a sharp breath.

"They call it kennel cough — it's not," she said. "How they can just classify it as that is beyond me."

Instead, Farris thinks the culprit is an equine flu that can jump from horse to dog. Researchers during the last suspected kennel cough outbreak at state tracks suspected a variant of equine flu might have killed eight greyhounds in 2004.

Veterinarians from the University of Florida were unavailable for comment Friday.

Farris, who worked with the Bonita Springs track doing greyhound adoptions for many years, said she thought tight living conditions and lax kennel operators might have contributed to the dogs deaths.

Hundreds of greyhounds are housed at the facility under the supervision of kennels that operate independently.

According to the track, at least nine of the dogs that died were from the same kennel.

Farris said there are reputable kennel operators there, but some have left in recent years. She pointed to last year's fire as an example of poor oversight at the track.

In that case, dozens of dogs languished for hours in smoke-filled rooms after a fire alarm went unattended by a guard. The smoldering fire put itself out but proved toxic to 17 greyhounds, and forced many more into retirement.

"They've got 40 dogs crammed into a small area. Each (kennel) houses up to at least 40 dogs," Farris said. "It's not clean. It doesn't surprise me at all."

Track officials, who did not comment about the situation Friday, said earlier in the week that the safety of the dogs is the track's primary concern and it is doing all it can to help speed the recovery of the affected greyhounds.

Similar facilities statewide have struggled with the same problem this summer, forcing reduction of racing at the Jacksonville Kennel Club and the Flagler Dog Track in Miami, where the virus affecting the Southwest Florida dogs is believed to have started.

Kennel cough also is a common foe at animal shelters nationwide.

Ria Brown, spokeswoman for Lee County Animal Services, said its dogs are vaccinated against the bug as they enter. Pet owners take the same precaution when they board their dogs at a private kennel, she said.

In order to do that, dogs must have proof of the bordetella bronchiseptica vaccine.

Despite the precaution, some dogs do still get the cough while at the shelter, most likely because they were exposed before they got the vaccine, Brown said.

But fatalities are rare, she said.

"It seems to be intermittent," she said of the infections. "Some don't get it at all." According to state guidelines, racing animals are supposed to be protected against upper respiratory infections with annual bordetella shots. They also are supposed to be inoculated with distemper, adenovirus, leptospirosis, para-influenza, parvo and rabies vaccines.

Proof of the vaccinations are supposed to be kept on file by kennel operators, according to the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering.

It was not clear Friday whether the dogs who died locally had received the shots.