WAFF.com: North Alabama News, Radar, Weather, Sports and Jobs-H3N8 virus spreading to man's best friend
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HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - We've heard of H1N1 in humans but how about H3N8 in your K-9.
It's a new strain of the influenza virus that's causing some real concern for pet owners.
It's just as contagious, hard to detect and even deadly.
First pigs, then man, now man's best friend?
Much like H1N1, H3N8 is also spreading through the population but in dogs and adding one more thing to list for us humans to worry about.
Pet owner, Angie Massey said, "I never thought of it, and I'm sure a lot of people haven't. We want to take care of them as well as we do ourselves."
H3N8 or the dog flu is a novel virus making it much more difficult to diagnose and making dogs more susceptible.
That's why Whitworth Animal Clinic is stockpiling plenty of the vaccine. More than 400 pets in our area have received a dose of the doggy vaccine.
Veterinarian Charles Whitworth said, "We are being proactive about it because our pets have no immunity to it, we don't want to get this in our clinic, and we don't our pets, patients to suffer from that."
Suffering leading to symptoms like a wet cough and even a fever.
Luckily, H3N8 can not spread to humans or cats.
Unlike the human influenza, the canine flu is not seasonal, infections can happen year round.
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