Following the death of two dogs in county care on Friday, Kern County Animal Services officials instituted a 10-day quarantine at their Fruitvale Avenue shelter as they work to identify the source of the illness.
Officials said in a Monday news release that they will stop accepting surrenders and strays except “sick stray dogs, injured stray dogs, or stray dogs that are a risk to public safety due to their aggressive behavior.” The shelter has also paused all surgeries.
This comes three days after shelter staff discovered a deceased dog Friday morning. Roughly six hours later, a second dog died, under similar circumstances — “an advanced respiratory illness that progressed very quickly,” according to the news release.
Two more dogs are currently showing similar symptoms and are being monitored.
Despite initial fears, staff is confident these cases are different from reports of a mysterious respiratory illness, called atypical canine infectious respiratory disease by investigators, that has sickened — and in some cases killed — dogs across 10 states, including California.
“What we’re seeing here, I suspect, is a secondary bacterial infection from viruses that we’ve had in this facility for quite some time,” said Dr. Kimberly King, who entered as Kern County’s new lead veterinarian on Nov. 1. “And I do think that’s separate from the mysterious disease that has been floating around.”
There is some overlap in symptoms, King explained. Like the mysterious illness, the dogs exhibited discharge around the eyes and struggled to breathe. Yet the dogs, staff said, were “bright, alert and responsive,” on Thursday, seemingly without symptoms.
The department now awaits the lab results of samples taken to identify the illness. They hope to have results by Wednesday evening.
“Once we know definitively what we’re dealing with, we can initiate treatment and move forward with a plan,” King said. “Until I know what we’re working with, I don’t know what’s safe to release into the community.”
For now, the county shelter’s dog population of 250 is under quarantine in the central kennel section. Crews on Monday — dressed in disposable coveralls — hosed and scrubbed the rear kennel area, to accept up to 200 incoming dogs over the next 10 days.
With an average of 25 to 30 new dogs each day, Nick Cullen, director of Kern County Animal Services, hopes the space will last them that long.
The deaths are a tragic reminder of the shelter’s longstanding issue of overpopulation — the past two years it has operated at three times its capacity.
“Shelters all across the country are packed to the gills,” Cullen said. “And when you’re operating a facility with dogs that are in close quarters and you’re constantly 100, 200, 300 percent above capacity… it’s ripe for something to happen.”
There were a lot of ways to go about this, Cullen said. While not wanting to be painted as an alarmist, the decision to quarantine was to prevent an outbreak, which could lead to “40 or 50 dead dogs in the kennels.”
“Which has happened in other facilities,” Cullen said.
KCAS will also not seek mass euthanasia of its dogs, instead spending $25,000 on antibiotics. With the exception of the last decade, shelters nationwide have historically used mass euthanasia — called depopulation — when outbreaks occur.
“We have never depopulated dogs,” Cullen said. “At least not in the 18 years that I’ve been with the department.”
Officials hope to reopen the shelter for adoptions again by early December, in time for the holidays.
In the interim, KCAS is asking the public to work with them, either by fostering pets temporarily and to avoid taking pets to places with high concentrations of dogs, such as boarding facilities, doggy day care centers or dog parks.
“It’s all meant to give us the space we need so that we can adequately care for animals here,” Cullen said.
Staff has also reached out to other organizations for guidance, such as UC Davis Veterinary School and the San Diego Humane Society, which have responded to similar outbreaks. Until then, quarantine is their best route forward.
“Respiratory illnesses are super common in an animal shelter,” Cullen said. “Anywhere you have a lot of dogs put together, you’re going to see some upper respiratory illness. This is different.”
