16 MarEpisode 53 | What dog owners need to know about the coronavirus, with Dr. Lisa Lippman
Welcome to Season 2 of School For The Dogs Podcast!
This episode is a conversation show host Annie Grossman had with veterinarian Dr. Lisa Lippman about the thing we are all talking about: COVID19. Annie asked Dr. Lisa if our pets can get sick, if they can get us sick, and the two spoke about how to take necessary precautions to keep our dogs safe.
Most of this episode is from a webinar Dr. Lisa and Annie did on March 4. It can be found at https://event.webinarjam.com/login/mlvlnckcqc6hgsg.
Learn more about Dr. Lisa Lippman at https://www.vetsinthecity.com/
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What dog owners need to know about the coronavirus with Dr. Lisa Lippman
Full Transcript:
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[Intro]
Hi! My name is Annie Grossman and I’m a dog trainer. This podcast is brought to you by School For The Dogs, a Manhattan-based facility I own and operate along with some of the city’s finest dog trainers. During this podcast, we’ll be answering your questions, eking out on animal behavior, discussing pet trends and interviewing industry experts. Welcome to School For The Dogs Podcast!
Annie: Hey, everybody! So I ended up having to take a bit longer of a hiatus [laughs]. Sorry, I had trouble getting that word out. A hiatus from this podcast than I originally meant to. But there was good reason for it. I have spent the last year hard at work at putting together an online dog training curriculum. And if you’re hearing this, on Monday, March 16th, I hope you will tune in for the live webinar that I am going to be doing this evening. I will be talking about the online course in the webinar. You can register for that at anniegrossman.com/register. And we’re going to try and get back to a once a week schedule with the podcast. In these crazy times, I think we could all stop and think a little bit about dogs, and I hope to be the person who can do that with you.
As always, if you have any dog training questions, please get in touch with me. I am going to try and do more Q&A episodes this season. We’re now on our second season at School For The Dogs Podcast. But what I have for you today is an interview I did with Dr. Lisa Lippman, a veterinarian, about a week ago about COVID-19. Specifically about dogs and COVID-19. Can dogs get Coronavirus? Can they give it to us? Can we give it to them? What do we need to be thinking about? She answered some of these questions and I’m glad I can share these answers with you.
So here we go; my interview with Dr. Lisa Lippman…
Annie: Hey, everybody! I am here with Dr. Lisa Lippman. I wanted to urgently talk to you, Dr. Lippman, about Coronavirus.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah.
Annie: It’s scary stuff.
Dr. Lippman: It is really scary stuff.
Annie: We’ve had a lot of clients asking us about it. And so, I wanted to get your expertise.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah.
Annie: When did you first hear about Coronavirus? Were vets in the know? I know sometimes vets are in the know about these things before we know that they can affect humans.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah, for sure. Well, we know that every species has their own Coronavirus. I actually did research on Coronavirus on avian Coronavirus in veterinary school as a model for SARS in people. So we know that every…
Annie: Oh really?
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. We know that every species has their own Coronavirus. So, for example, in dogs it tends to be a respiratory disease. In cats, it tends to be a GI disease. One that can mutate. Maybe people know as Feline Infectious Peritonitis. But they tend to be pretty benign viruses that are actually pretty easy to kill, which is true of this current Coronavirus as well, because they don’t have a shell or an outer coating to the virus itself. The Coronavirus is named because of the way that it’s shaped. So it’s shaped like a crown or the corona. It’s got like little particles sticking off of it. But it actually is pretty easy to kill in the environments. So that is also good news.
So we know that every species has their own Coronavirus, but they tend to be pretty species-specific. Meaning that each individual Coronavirus is actually pretty different in that they only infect their individual species as far as we know.
Annie: Yeah. Okay. So had it been a problem then in the dog community before it started being a problem for people? Or has it been a problem for people and dogs, but we didn’t hear about it?
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. Exactly. It’s always been a thing. Coronavirus is definitely a thing. Again, we know it causes respiratory virus in us, in babies. It’s really common, like in preschools and stuff. They just all spread it around. You see it as part of the common colds. This Coronavirus is different for people because of the way that it’s mutated and turned into something different. But for dogs, there actually is a vaccine. We actually don’t even recommend it. It’s not a core vaccine. I don’t recommend it because, again, it tends to be a very brief lived, short, nonlethal virus that dogs kind of get and get over and it’s no big deal.
Annie: Even though in mutant strain of it?
Dr. Lippman: So this strain of it, so a lot of the questions I’ve been getting around the strain of it is can dogs get it? Can our pets get it? And what we know so far — here’s what we know — is that there was one dog, I believe in Hongkong, that tested positive for the virus. It means that the virus was living on the dog. They took oral and nasal swabs of the dog. But just like Coronavirus can live on surfaces, it can live on the surface of a dog. It doesn’t mean that the dog was infected. And so far, that’s what we’re seeing. We’re not seeing that the dog is infected. So it has no signs of this Coronavirus. The dog is living a happy, normal, healthy life. We’ve just isolated some virus protocols from the dog. It’s just hanging out on the dog, kind of like it would hang out on any surface.
So that’s to say if you or anybody you know for some reason gets quarantined or comes down with the virus, right now your dog can stay with you. You cannot infect your dog. And, you know, we think even having the dog is beneficial because it lowers stress levels and, you know, you get your buddy there. And obviously, you can’t do that with other people. So as of right now, there’s no evidence that we can pass this Coronavirus, this COVID-19 — which by the way stands for Coronavirus 2019 — there’s no evidence that it can be passed on to pets where they will become infected with it.
Annie: And vice versa also.
Dr. Lippman: Right. And vice versa. And so, the other thing that we know is definitely what to do, right? So handwashing. Handwashing for at least 20 seconds with soap and water. And using — if you’re not able to hand wash — to use a hand sanitizer that has at least 60% alcohol in it.
Annie: So have you had clients asking you to give the vaccine for Coronavirus, the dog vaccine?
Dr. Lippman: No. Actually, I don’t think a lot of clients know that it exists. Because, again, I think that there’s probably almost no clients out there whose pets have ever even had the virus, because it’s not been something that we recommended. Certainly, there’s a lot of talk about, you know, the human vaccine and people trying to develop a human vaccine. But that will a long — it takes a long time to get through FDA approval for that. So for this particular strain of virus, there’s no known vaccine, and I think that that’s part of, you know, what the problem is with this being so infectious, is that right now there is no vaccine, we don’t really have a good way to stop it. We can just contain it, be prepared.
Annie: But you’re saying we don’t need to worry about our dogs?
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. As of right now, there’s no evidence that our dogs can get infected. And so, one of the other concerns is that…
Annie: That’s some good news.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. This is good news.
Annie: The Coronavirus.
Dr. Lippman: And it’s really important to know because, you know, a lot of people in the past when diseases like this have spread, there’s been a lot of concern over animal welfare. So, for example, people euthanizing animals or dropping animals off at shelters because people are concerned that animals could be carrying it. If somebody is infected and lives with an animal, it is probably the safe thing to do to just go ahead and quarantine obviously yourselves. There’s going to be a human quarantine. But keep your animal indoors as well. Don’t let your animals interact with other people. They can spread it pretty much the same as just a common surface can.
Annie: So another side as far as worrying about dogs as it relates to this very scary thing for us humans is, you know, people dying and not having a preparedness plan for that for their dog.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. And I think that that’s — oh, for sure. So people definitely should have preparedness plans for their dogs. Write them into your will or have a plan, for sure. The other thing is stocking up, right? So being prepared. So everybody should have emergency preparedness. Now, it doesn’t mean going out and buying the entire store or hoarding materials so that other people can’t get them and causing mass chaos. This means having enough for a month of food. At least a week up to a month, I’d say, of extra food for you and your pet.
So that’s where a lot of the chaos comes from right now, is people buying out stores. Like we can’t get any hand sanitizers right now. It’s very hard to do, because people have gone out and bought it all up.
Annie: Right.
Dr. Lippman: And that’s really where the chaos comes from surrounding this virus.
Annie: Are there any other health concerns right now that we need to be keeping an eye on, making sure our pets are okay?
Dr. Lippman: I think I would just always recommend that you see your vet every six months to a year and making sure they’re healthy. There are all kinds of things you can catch early. Insides don’t always match your outsides. So yearly blood work and exams are really a good idea.
Annie: What happened to the dog flu that was much talked about about two summers ago?
Dr. Lippman: That’s a great question. Yeah. So we did — we had like a pretty brief outbreak of the flu over the summer. So canine influenza. So before that, we hadn’t really seen a case in New York City in about five years. And then, we had a pretty brief outbreak. It seemed to last about two to three months. Most of the dogs — actually, all the dogs that I saw with canine influenza had got it and were able to recover from it. The mortality with the canine influenza is about — I want to say about 2% to 10% that some dogs will get sick and some dogs will pass away. But, again, I did not see that for the dogs that I was treating with the canine influenza.
So it was pretty short lived and I haven’t really seen a case since, and I haven’t heard of a case been reported since this past summer. Again, it’s something that we do have a vaccination for. It’s a lot like the human influenza where it’s about 30% effective. It may decrease the morbidity, meaning like how sick they get from it, if they do get the vaccine and they do get influenza. But it’s a vaccine that I typically push unless I have a dog who is traveling a lot or in agility circuit or really commingling a lot. But a lot of places in New York City have now started requiring the influenza just because of that one outbreak. And it seems like New York City sort of gets an outbreak every five years or so.
Annie: Any other like preparedness tips? Just in general, pet health preparedness?
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. I mean, having a pet — so taking my pet first aid and CPR course I think is a really good idea.
Annie: It’s every month.
Dr. Lippman: And having a pet first aid kit. So I give you a list there. But also, other resources. So it’s really hard to know like what’s misinformation out there, right? And so, I think other resources out there that are really great that people should rely on is the CDC. The WHO, the World Health Organization. There is an organization called World Small Animal Veterinary Association. And there’s also a blog that I really like called Worms & Germs, which is actually manned by…
Annie: Maureen Anderson.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. It’s manned by public health officials in Canada who are really knowledgeable and fun. And if you want a little more conversation surrounding it, that’s a really good place to go as well.
Annie: Maureen Anderson.
Dr. Lippman: Yeah. So just making sure. Like I said, the biggest thing with these viruses is not that you or your dog is going to catch it. And again, right now, there’s no evidence that pets can get it. But that if you get quarantined, do you have enough food at home for you and your dog for like a week to a month?
Annie: All right. Thank you very much, Dr. Lippman for the information.
Dr. Lippman: My please. Thanks for having me, guys. Hope to see you in class.
Annie: Bye.
Dr. Lippman: Okay. Bye.
Annie: Thanks so much for listening. You can support School For The Dogs Podcast by telling your friends about it, leaving a review or shopping in our online store. You can learn more about us and sign up to get lots of free training resources when you visit us online at schoolforthedogs.com.
