Washington (AFP) – The first dog to test positive for the coronavirus in the United States died, reported National Geographic magazine, after struggling with symptoms that may be familiar to many of those with the virus.
Buddy, the seven-year-old German shepherd, became ill in April, around the same time that his owner Robert Mahoney was recovering from COVID-19, according to the magazine this week.
Buddy appeared to have a stuffy nose and shortness of breath, and his condition only worsened in the following weeks and months.
Mahoney and his wife Allison, who live in New York, finally euthanized the dog on July 11 after Buddy started vomiting blood clots, urinated blood, and was unable to walk.
But the family told National Geographic they were having difficulty confirming their suspicion that Buddy was infected with SARS-CoV-2.
“Without a doubt, I thought (Buddy) was positive,” Mahoney said, but many vets in his area were closed due to the pandemic.
Some of them were skeptical that pets get the virus. And most of the test supplies were kept for human use anyway.
Finally, a clinic was able to confirm that Buddy was positive and found that the family’s 10-month-old cub, who was never ill, had antibodies to the virus.
Later, Buddy’s vets discovered that the dog probably also suffered from lymphoma, raising the question of whether animals, like humans, with pre-existing conditions might also be more susceptible to serious illness from the new coronavirus.
Neither public health officials nor veterinarians were able to provide the family with much information, they told National Geographic, because there was insufficient data on the virus in animals, beyond the fact that the infection appeared to be rare.
“We had zero knowledge or experience with the scientific basis of COVID in dogs,” Robert Cohen, the vet who tested Buddy, told the journal.
And it seemed to them that neither the city nor the federal health authorities were very interested in learning about Buddy’s case. When they decided to do a necropsy, Buddy had already been cremated.
The official word of the World Health Organization is that pets do not usually transmit the virus to their owners.
But Shelley Rankin, a veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania, said more study is needed.
“If we are telling the world that the prevalence (of animal cases) is low, then we have to look at a large number” of animals, he said.
Twelve dogs and 10 cats have tested positive for coronavirus in the U.S., according to National Geographic.
The Mahoneys say they want Buddy’s story to be heard.
“(It was) a good little pumpkin. I wish we could have had it longer,” Allison Mahoney said.
