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Can dogs get the coronavirus? A North Carolina pug may be the first case of COVID-19 in dogs in the United States, which opens a new chapter in how the novel coronavirus can spread.
What’s the news:
- Heather McLean, a hospital pediatrician and vice chair and associate professor at Duke University, and her family discovered that their pug, Winston, had tested positive for COVID-19, according to USA Today.
- The dog did not show any severe symptoms of the coronavirus.
- McLean said her father heard the dog cough a lot. And the dog didn’t eat breakfast, either. Both of them were signs, she said, that something was wrong, USA Today reports.
- She told WRAL-TV: “Pugs are a little unusual in that they cough and sneeze in a very strange way. So it almost seems like he was gagging, and there was one day when he didn’t want to eat his breakfast, and if you know pugs you know they love to eat, so that seemed very unusual.”
- McClean and her husband, Sam, developed symptoms of COVID-19 in March.
How the diagnosis happened
- Winston tested positive for the virus when tested at Duke University. Winston was added to a molecular and epidemiological study of suspected infection (MESSI) research study in April, which tested humans and pets, according to WRAL-TV.
- Dr. Chris Woods, who heads the Duke study, told WRAL-TV in North Carolina that he believes this is the first case of the virus in the U.S.