493 – Leptospirosis: Deadly Disease for You and Your Dog
Leptospirosis: Deadly Disease for You and Your Dog
Dr. Marty Greer, DVM joins host Laura Reeves for deep dive and myth busting conversation about the dangers of the deadly leptospirosis infection in dogs AND humans.
“Years ago leptospirosis was in pretty significant disease,” Greer said. “And then we saw it kind of decline in frequency. Probably in the last decade or so. there’s been a reemerging of this disease. It’s a bacterial disease and there were some dogs that reacted to the lepto vaccine. If a dog was going to react to vaccine negatively it was probably either going to be lepto or coronavirus. So as a result, a lot of breeders started to drop that out of their vaccine protocols.
“However, we do see lepto in our practice on a fairly regular basis. It is most common in puppies under six months of age because their immune system isn’t as great yet. If you don’t look for lepto, you probably don’t see lepto.
“The recommendation is to not give leptospirosis vaccines to puppies under 12 weeks of age, because it tends to suppress their immune system and they have a more difficult time reacting to the other vaccines. About 12 weeks and older they should be vaccinated. It’s a series of two vaccinations, two to three weeks apart. We do recommend lepto for all the puppies in our practice unless the breeder has written into their contract not to do it.
“Unfortunately, there’s a fairly significant number of lepto cases that get undiagnosed. If you look through the list of symptoms, it’s extensive … it causes vomiting and diarrhea and cough and high liver enzymes and elevated kidney values and respiratory disease and eye disease, infertility. So, you can go right down the list and if you look at the symptoms, it’s anything that a dog can come in looking like.
Zoonotic impacts
Hawaii has the highest rates of human incidence of Leptospirosis infections, Greer noted.
“Think about the climate (in Hawaii). It’s moist, high humidity, alkaline soil. All of those factors contribute to leptospirosis being in the environment. The Midwest, southeastern states, of course, (are at higher risk).
“The more arid states like Arizona and New Mexico, California, those places tend not to have as much lepto because it’s drier. We most commonly see lepto about three to 18 months after significant flooding in an area. It spreads through the urine of infected animals, but it can also stay in the environment for an extended period of time.
“People do get lepto. There have been reports of people that work in kennels dying and farmers and veterinarians getting sick. So absolutely, positively humans can get lepto, either from their animals, their pets, from hospitalized patients or from livestock. There’s a lot of ways that people could be exposed to lepto. So if you have a possible exposure and you’re not feeling well, of course you need to let your veterinarian and your physician know.
Diagnosis
“There’s a blood test and there’s a urine test, and there is an antibody test and there’s a PCR test. So there are different ways to test depending on the symptoms that the dog is exhibiting and the stage of the disease. If the dog is recently infected and not yet on antibiotics, doing blood and urine PCR’s, where they actually look for the protein of the bacteria, is the most effective way to test.
“In a longer standing case, where the dogs have liver enzymes going up and kidney values going up, then you probably want to do a blood test, doing an antibody test. The best antibody test is done as two tests, three weeks apart. You do an acute titer and a convalescent titer looking for the titer to rise quickly over that three-week period of time.
Treatment
“(Do) not wait to put the dog on antibiotics. Baytril is not recommended. A lot of people reach for Baytril for serious infections, but it’s either amoxicillin, ampicillin or doxycycline that or the treatment of choice. They’re fairly long treatments. They are weeks of treatment to make sure that we’ve cleared not just the acute phase, but the carrier phase, where the dog would continue to shed the bacteria in the urine.”
190 – Leptospirosis symptoms, treatments and prevention
Dr. Marty Greer
Leptospirosis symptoms, treatments and prevention
Dr. Marty Greer, DVM, JD joins us again for our monthly Veterinary Voice. Our topic this month is the potentially deadly zoonotic disease, leptospirosis.
Resurgent disease
Aka Lepto, this bacterial infection is found primarily in areas of standing water and within about 18 months of major flooding. Desert and dry regions see very little of the disease. Greer said the veterinary community is seeing a resurgence in this dangerous infection.
A spirochete bacteria, Lepto looks like a corkscrew under a microscope. The actual physical shape of the bug is instrumental in how it impacts the host. These little creatures burrow into tissue, primarily in the liver and kidney. They can frequently live *undetected* in the host for years. The germs are shed in the urine of affected animals.
Lepto bacteria are transmitted through mucus membranes. Livestock and wildlife are the primary points of exposure for our dogs. Pets who trot out to do their business and investigate overnight visitors in the yard are at risk just as much as hunting dogs.
Symptoms
This is a zoonotic disease (communicable to humans as well as animals) which may cause any and or all of the following symptoms in our pets:
- Drink more,
- urinate more,
- vomiting,
- diarrhea,
- maybe even a cough….
- High liver enzymes and high kidney values on same blood panel…
- fever,
- lethargic,
- jaundice (yellow),
- lower appetite,
- stiff/painful…
“The problem is, these symptoms are common to other diseases,” Greer said. “The dogs can be asymptomatic to critically ill.”
Prevention
Greer advocates for a three-year vaccine protocol for viral diseases like distemper and parvo. But she strongly encourages her clients to incorporate a one-year plan for the bacterial diseases such as leptospirosis and bordatella.
“We see (lepto) primarily in the spring and fall,” Greer said. “But you have to test specifically for it to know for sure what’s going on. The vaccines we have available today are safer and far more effective than they were 10-15 years ago,” making them far less likely to cause a vaccine reaction and more likely to prevent all of the strains of the disease.
Diagnosis
Lepto can be diagnosed specifically only with a DNA test drawn from urine when the dog is acutely sick. This test seeks to identify the actual DNA of the bacteria. A blood test also can determine titers for lepto. What this titer seeks is to look for the actual disease instead of *immunity* to the disease through vaccination.
Treatment
Greer said an ultrasound to determine kidney/liver involvement can be needed. And antibiotics, either doxycycline and/or amoxicillin, may be prescribed.
Since lepto can be asymptomatic and can spread quickly to remaining dogs (and children or adults) in a kennel/household, proper diagnosis, prevention or treatment are imperative.
Greer recommends this vaccination guideline (link below) to help determine what a dog may or may not need for the specific lifestyle it pursues.
https://www.aaha.org/pet_owner/aaha_guidelines/aahas_canine_vaccination_guidelines.aspx