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Self-imposed quarantine lifted at Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track weeks after 16 dogs died
Racing officials are breathing easier after weeks of upper respiratory sickness plagued dogs at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track.
With no deaths there for three weeks, a self-imposed quarantine was lifted at the Bonita Springs facility Friday and racing will return to its normal schedule, said track veterinarian Hakim Hamici. Other greyhound facilities throughout Florida remain under self-imposed lockdown as the state heads into what appears to be the end stages of an outbreak of illness among race dogs.
Tom Butler, deputy press secretary for the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which oversees gaming in Florida, said Friday no new outbreaks of sick dogs have been reported.
"The illness appears to be waning," he said. "The death toll remains at 18."
Sixteen of the dogs that died were at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track.
Cynda Crawford, a University of Florida veterinarian who performed autopsies on the greyhounds, said the animals succumbed to pneumonia, a complication of a relatively new animal upper respiratory ailment known as canine influenza.
First documented three years ago, the virus has been found at tracks and other facilities with kennels across the country.
Past outbreaks occurred in January 2004, then again in the summer of that year. Nationwide, the virus emerged again from February to May of 2005, she said.
In addition to the deaths documented at Florida tracks this summer, there is one confirmed outbreak in a Palm Beach animal shelter, Crawford said. Vets are at work trying to confirm a similar case elsewhere in northern Florida.
Though upper respiratory infections are commonly known as "kennel cough" because of the symptoms they cause and their frequent appearance at places where dogs are grouped together, Crawford said canine influenza is different from the bugs vets have seen in the past.
Pet owners are familiar with the bordetella vaccine with which their animal must be inoculated before it can be boarded, she said. There are vaccines too, for two other viruses that commonly cause flu-like symptoms in dogs.
But there is no protection currently available for canine influenza, which due to its new nature catches dogs' immune systems off guard, Crawford said.
The USDA in October sent out a notice expressing interest in licensing a vaccine against canine influenza but has not yet released an inoculation.
The animals that die "have no defense" against the virus, Crawford said, adding those that have died have been young with no underlying problems.
If that seems counterintuitive, she pointed to the Spanish Flu Pandemic seen at the beginning of the last century, when hale soldiers and healthy teenagers succumbed en masse. Similarly, the emerging avian flu recently has claimed several young human victims.
There is no precedent for canine influenza passing to people, and of those dogs that get sick in Florida, Crawford estimates only about 7 percent die.
That number only is accurate for animals outside the racing community, though. Crawford said the mortality rate for greyhounds housed at state tracks is not certain.
"It's very hard to estimate how many dogs actually die during these outbreaks because there is no mandatory reporting to some central agency about the dispensation of greyhounds," she said. "If it dies or is put down that doesn't have to be documented."
Tracks are vulnerable to spread of the disease, she said.
Race animals are housed in close quarters in kennels, and frequently are moved around the state and country.
The past three outbreaks of canine influenza have been traced to the Flagler Dog Track and Entertainment Center in Miami, where the largest concentration of racing greyhounds in the country is housed, Crawford said.
Animal trainers dread the disease coming to their track, she said. Once is does, it is not uncommon for workers to monitor hundreds of animals' temperatures twice a day for the length of the outbreak.
If one dies, it is "devastating, emotional and personal," she said.
The single best way to prevent the spread of sickness is with quarantine, she said, but putting that measure into place can be hard to time.
Canine influenza strikes quickly and explosively, Crawford said.
"Infected dogs shed the virus before (they) ever display signs of being ill," she said. "They're like little stealth bombers." Deaths that occur come early, she said.
That was the case at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track, where a quarantine went into effect June 12.
By June 17, 16 dogs had died.
Track veterinarian Hamici said after that point, the dogs began to mend.
Animals sometimes are lost early because they show no symptoms of being sick and don't get the necessarily treatment quickly enough, he said.
"These dogs are like horses, they're strong, but when they go down...," he said.
Those that died were felled by "classic pneumonia," he said.
After realizing the problem, the facility scaled back the number of races that were run and Hamici said he was available around the clock to tend to sick animals.
The track lifted its quarantine Friday morning after contacting state veterinarians and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, he added.
Greyhound advocates, though, argue the statewide quarantines should have been in place quicker.
They say dogs were being "scratched," or removed from a day's races, at tracks before the illnesses became public knowledge.
At the Naples-Fort Myers track, at least 13 dogs scratched June 8, the week before the facility put its quarantine into place, according to online race results.
Susan Netboy, president of the California-based Greyhound Protection League, said it is common that dogs occasionally would not race due to an injury but to see any more than one or two scratches per performance is unusual.
Once the illnesses were noticed, all the tracks should have been shut down, not just quarantined, to give the dogs a chance to get healthy again, Netboy said.
She called the loss of dogs in Florida "an appalling and unnecessary loss of life."
"One of the major problems is that the welfare of greyhounds is such a low priority within the racing industry because the dogs are so easily replaced by other dogs that are waiting in the wings," she said. "The industry has just kind of let this thing explode."
If quarantines were put into place in a timely manner and were adhered to once they were in place, the flu wouldn't be traveling from track to track and state to state, she added.
Netboy said she believes tracks are unwilling to talk about canine influenza publicly because they fear gamblers will stay at home rather than bet on a sick dog.
Hamici, though, said he didn't believe patrons noticed a change at the track in recent weeks.
Races were still being run, he said, adding that he didn't believe the track suffered a significant financial loss due to the illness.
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