Pound suspends voluntary intakes amid illness outbreak
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (June 20, 2024) – Tuscarawas County Dog Pound staff are asking for everyone’s patience as they deal with a kennel cough outbreak.
Facility and Adoption Specialist Beth Lewis says it’s a challenging situation although not as dire as other recent disease scares.
“It is highly contagious just because of the nature of it, because it is airborne like the human flu and cold. So in a kennel setting, one dog coughing can infect a lot of them being airborne pretty quickly. It’s not going to kill them. It’s just difficult to manage and prevent.”
Three dogs became ill after being adopted from the facility. Lewis says only one of the five remaining has been exhibiting symptoms and is being treated with antibiotics.
“Luckily, two of them have potential adopters who do not have other dogs, which is fabulous because they can still adopt these dogs that are here, just with the understanding that they either have or have been exposed to kennel cough, and they just need to watch them and keep them away from dogs for the next 10 to 14 days.”
The pound is legally required to continue taking in strays, but voluntary intakes are on hold for now.
“It’s not a permanent thing. It’s just for us to get our legs back under us, get the population under control in the building, get all of the exposed dogs treated and watched. Hopefully, we can get through this quickly and then get back to business as usual.”
This follows two recent parvo exposures at the facility, which took in 33 dogs during the first 17 days of June and has agreed to accept at least a half dozen others once normal operations resume.